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The conquests of the Aztec and Inca empires might be the most shocking events in human history.
阿兹特克帝国和印加帝国的征服可能是人类历史上最令人震惊的事件。
Hernan Cortés and some hundreds of Conquistadors landed on a new continent they knew basically nothing about, and within 2 and a half years, conquered the 6 million strong Aztec empire.
埃尔南·科尔特斯和数百名征服者登陆了他们基本上一无所知的新大陆，并在两年半内征服了拥有 600 万人口的阿兹特克帝国。
Then, a decade later, Francisco Pizarro did the same thing to an Incan Empire of some 10 million inhabitants.
十年后，弗朗西斯科·皮萨罗对拥有约 1000 万居民的印加帝国做了同样的事情。
In both cases, the Conquistadors consistently beat native armies while being literally 100x (or even in some cases 1000x) outnumbered - and in many cases, did so without taking a single casualty.
在这两种情况下，征服者都始终击败了当地军队，同时在数量上处于劣势 100 倍（甚至在某些情况下甚至是 1000 倍）——而且在许多情况下，他们没有造成任何伤亡。
And they did this with 99% of their military forces being made up of the very natives they were trying to subjugate.
他们这样做的时候，99%的军队都是由他们试图征服的当地人组成的。
We often forget how wild human history is.
我们常常忘记人类历史是多么狂野。
People talk about AI takeover as if it would be some crazy, unprecedented sci-fi outcome.
人们谈论人工智能的接管，就好像这将是某种疯狂的、前所未有的科幻成果。
But this would not be the first time an alien force whose motives the defenders barely understand use more advanced technology and diplomatic cunning to outmaneuver and then take over a much larger and long established existing order.
但这并不是第一次有一支外星力量，其防御者几乎不了解其动机，使用更先进的技术和外交狡猾来战胜并接管一个更大且长期建立的现有秩序。
Jane Street ’s intern projects are even more ambitious than I realized.
Jane Street 的实习生项目比我想象的还要雄心勃勃。
One intern spent his summer researching LLM memorization, figuring out how to quantify and reduce it.
一位实习生整个夏天都在研究法学硕士的记忆，找出如何量化和减少它的方法。
This matters because, when Jane Street tests their models on historical data, they need to know that performance reflects predictive power, not just memorized outcomes.
这很重要，因为当 Jane Street 根据历史数据测试他们的模型时，他们需要知道性能反映的是预测能力，而不仅仅是记住的结果。
Another intern spent his time developing a new activation checkpointing scheme: his custom version ended up outperforming PyTorch’s native one.
另一位实习生花时间开发了一种新的激活检查点方案：他的自定义版本最终优于 PyTorch 的原生版本。
If you want to read about more 2026 intern projects or apply for Jane Street’s 2027 internships, go to janestreet.com/dwarkesh
如果您想了解更多 2026 年实习生项目或申请 Jane Street 2027 年实习生，请访问 janestreet.com/dwarkesh
Grok Bot can tackle the tasks you’ve been meaning to handle but just haven’t gotten around to.
Grok Bot 可以解决您一直想处理但没有时间处理的任务。
For example, SpaceXAI recently gave Grok Bot access to their procurement contracts, vendor spend, and usage data: it ended up identifying over $100,000 in potential savings for them.
例如，SpaceXAI 最近允许 Grok Bot 访问他们的采购合同、供应商支出和使用数据：它最终为他们确定了超过 100,000 美元的潜在节省。
I decided to try this on my own spend, and Grok Bot found over $5,000 of savings for me, even though I run a pretty small team.
我决定用自己的钱尝试一下，Grok Bot 为我节省了超过 5,000 美元，尽管我管理着一个很小的团队。
Try it out yourself at x.ai/bot
在 x.ai/bot 上亲自尝试一下
Antithesis solves one of the biggest problems with traditional software testing: to test for a bug, you first have to be able to imagine it.
对立解决了传统软件测试的最大问题之一：要测试错误，您首先必须能够想象它。
Antithesis runs your system through thousands of parallel histories and steers your tests for you, injecting faults and generally trying to make everything as adversarial as possible.
对立通过数千个并行历史运行您的系统，并为您引导您的测试，注入错误，并通常尝试使一切尽可能地对抗。
That way, your software gets tested against scenarios you’d never imagine but that could still arise in the real world.
这样，您的软件就可以针对您从未想象过但在现实世界中仍然可能出现的场景进行测试。
Learn more at antithesis.com/dwarkesh
了解更多信息，请访问 antithesis.com/dwarkesh
(01:14:16) – Conquistador motivation (01:26:22) – Why Mughal India also couldn’t play the Europeans off each other
(01:14:16) – 征服者动机 (01:26:22) – 为什么莫卧儿印度也无法与欧洲人互相对抗
Dwarkesh Patel Today I’m chatting with professor and military historian Si Sheppard .
德瓦克什·帕特尔 (Dwarkesh Patel) 今天我正在与军事历史学家西·谢泼德 (Si Sheppard) 教授聊天。
I want to talk to you about the conquest of the Aztec and the Inca Empires because these are some of the most shocking events in human history, unparalleled among all the military and diplomatic achievements ever made.
我想和大家谈谈对阿兹特克帝国和印加帝国的征服，因为这是人类历史上最令人震惊的事件，在所有军事和外交成就中是无与伦比的。
A few hundred conquistadors show up to a new continent they know nothing about.
数百名征服者来到了他们一无所知的新大陆。
Within a matter of years, they subjugate empires which have millions of inhabitants in them.
几年之内，他们就征服了拥有数百万居民的帝国。
In the process of doing so, they are often winning battles where they are outnumbered 100 to 1, 1,000 to 1, and in many cases not even taking a single casualty.
在这样做的过程中，他们经常以100比1、1000比1的寡不敌众赢得战斗，很多时候甚至没有伤亡。
They’re doing this while upwards of 99% of their fighting forces are made up of the very natives that they’re going to subjugate.
他们这样做的同时，他们99%以上的战斗部队都是由他们要征服的当地人组成的。
I wanted to have you on to talk about something this episode.
我想让你谈谈这一集的一些事情。
We’re not going to focus on it, we’re mostly talking about history here, but people think of AI takeover as this crazy sci-fi scenario but this would not be the first time in history that an alien force, with motivations that the natives don’t understand, is able to use diplomatic cunning and technological advantages to outmaneuver and then take over a much larger and well-established order.
我们不会关注它，我们在这里主要谈论历史，但人们认为人工智能接管是一种疯狂的科幻场景，但这并不是历史上第一次，外星势力怀着当地人不理解的动机，能够利用外交狡猾和技术优势来战胜，然后接管一个更大、更完善的秩序。
I wanted to have you on to understand what happened here.
我想让你了解这里发生了什么。
First, I would love to hear the stories.
首先，我很想听听这些故事。
What did Cortés do?
科尔特斯做了什么？
What did Pizarro do?
皮萨罗做了什么？
How did these conquests actually go down?
这些征服实际上是如何进行的？
Si Sheppard Thank you.
谢泼德 谢谢你。
It’s a great pleasure to be here.
很高兴来到这里。
Yes, we’re talking about the birth of our modern world, which played out between 600 to 500 years ago and created the modern globalized community that we all participate in today.
是的，我们谈论的是现代世界的诞生，它发生在 600 到 500 年前，创造了我们今天都参与的现代全球化社区。
It began in the 15th century when Europe, backed up against the wall of the Atlantic, under immense pressure from external forces and cut off from the core economic power bases of the East — the sources of the spice and silk that had driven the global economy historically throughout Eurasia — was finally forced to innovate.
它始于 15 世纪，当时欧洲背靠大西洋，承受着来自外部力量的巨大压力，并与东方的核心经济力量基础——历史上推动整个欧亚大陆的香料和丝绸的来源——隔绝，最终被迫进行创新。
Key names like Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal work on turning the Atlantic Ocean from a barrier into a superhighway.
葡萄牙航海家亨利王子等重要人物致力于将大西洋从障碍变成高速公路。
Generational knowledge accrued from captains reporting on tides and wind currents and whatever land they’ve managed to reconnoiter, building out the map as they go along, enables them to find a way around the southern tip of Africa directly to India and therefore cut out the middleman.
船长们在报告潮汐和风流以及他们设法勘察的任何土地时积累了几代人的知识，在航行过程中绘制地图，使他们能够找到一条绕过非洲南端直接到达印度的路，从而省去中间人。
The Spanish, meanwhile, are heading west.
与此同时，西班牙人正在向西进发。
We all know the story of Christopher Columbus : “In 1492, he sailed the ocean blue.” That was entrepreneurship.
我们都知道克里斯托弗·哥伦布的故事：“1492年，他航行在蓝色的大海上。”这就是创业。
This was an expedition to arrive at the Oriental markets by traveling west.
这是一次西行到达东方市场的探险活动。
Of course, his figures were completely wrong.
当然，他的数字是完全错误的。
He was saved by the fact that, unknown to him, there was an entire continent in the place where he thought Japan, China, and the Spice Islands would be.
拯救他的是这样一个事实：他不知道的是，在他认为日本、中国和香料群岛所在的地方，存在着整个大陆。
Initially, that was perceived, ironically, as a disappointment.
讽刺的是，最初，这被认为是令人失望的。
But over time, it became increasingly apparent this was a source of potential in land, in wealth, and in people that could be exploited.
但随着时间的推移，人们越来越明显地发现，这是土地、财富和可被利用的人口潜力的来源。
A key turning point happened in 1511 when an ambitious Spanish nobleman, de Velázquez , seizes control of Cuba.
一个关键的转折点发生在 1511 年，当时雄心勃勃的西班牙贵族委拉斯开兹控制了古巴。
He sends out from this power base expeditions exploring the coast of what we would call Mesoamerica, Central America.
他从这个权力基地派出探险队，探索我们称之为中美洲的海岸。
Later in 1518, he assigns that task to a man with whom he’s had a somewhat tempestuous relationship, a man named Hernán Cortés .
1518 年晚些时候，他将这项任务分配给了一个与他关系有些紧张的人，这个人名叫埃尔南·科尔特斯 (Hernán Cortés)。
He’d arrived in the New World in Cuba in 1511.
1511 年，他抵达新大陆的古巴。
He had some legal training, so he served as a notary and worked his way up to being alcalde , which is chief magistrate, on Cuba.
他接受过一些法律培训，因此担任过公证人，并逐渐成为古巴的首席法官。
But he had much greater ambition.
但他还有更大的野心。
He takes this warrant from the governor and runs with it.
他从州长手中接过逮捕令并执行。
He begins recruiting men to a much wider and much more ambitious goal: not just to explore the coast, but to penetrate into the interior, to find out what’s there, and to seize control of it.
他开始招募人员来实现更广泛、更雄心勃勃的目标：不仅要探索海岸，还要深入内陆，找出那里有什么，并控制它。
When the governor realizes what Cortés is up to, he tries to stop him.
当州长意识到科尔特斯的企图时，他试图阻止他。
There’s this great moment on 18th November 1518.
1518 年 11 月 18 日是这个伟大的时刻。
He arrives at the waterfront just as Cortés gets into a boat to go out to his ships offshore.
当他到达海滨时，科尔特斯正乘船前往离岸的船只。
The governor calls out to him, “What are you up to?” Cortés assures him, “Don’t worry.
州长对他喊道：“你在做什么？”科尔特斯向他保证：“别担心。
I have this all under control.” But of course, the governor had lost control at that point.
这一切都在我的掌控之中。”但当然，州长当时已经失去了控制。
Now it was Cortés’s expedition.
现在是科尔特斯的探险队了。
This is the background.
这是背景。
Again, as you say, he is literally going off the side of the map.
正如你所说，他再次脱离了地图的一侧。
He’s entering terra incognita, unknown to Europeans previously.
他正在进入欧洲人以前不知道的未知领域。
His political antenna, honed by years in the islands, enables him to appreciate at a very early stage that there is a significant imperial power which has hegemony here in the mainland, and that its subject peoples chafe under the authority of whoever this lord or imperial power is.
他在群岛上长年磨练的政治天线，使他很早就认识到，在大陆上有一个拥有霸权的重要皇权，而无论这个领主或皇权是谁，其臣民都会对他的权威感到不满。
He arrives in the lands of the Totonacs , who had recently been incorporated into the imperial orbit of a people who call themselves the Mexica — hence Mexico as we know it — but who have come down to history based on their mythical origins in a land called Aztlán as the Aztecs.
他来到了托托纳克人的土地，托托纳克人最近被纳入一个自称为墨西加人的帝国轨道——也就是我们所知的墨西哥——但他们的历史是基于他们在一个叫做阿兹特兰的阿兹特克人的土地上的神话起源。
For simplicity’s sake, that’s what we’ll refer to them as.
为了简单起见，我们就这样称呼它们。
The Totonacs resented this authority, as all subjugated and subordinated peoples do, and they saw the arrival of these outsiders as a potential opportunity to throw off the authority that had been imposed on them.
托托纳克人像所有被征服和从属的民族一样憎恨这种权威，他们将这些外来者的到来视为摆脱强加给他们的权威的潜在机会。
Having established this relationship with the Totonacs, Cortés begins to march inland, and he enters the territory of the Tlaxcalans , who, like an autoimmune system, immediately rallied to defeat him, to expel him from their territory.
与托托纳克人建立了这种关系后，科尔特斯开始向内陆进军，他进入了特拉斯卡拉人的领地，特拉斯卡拉人就像一个自身免疫系统一样，立即集结起来击败他，将他驱逐出他们的领地。
But he fights them to a standstill for such a period of time that the Tlaxcalans and he arrive at a new kind of arrangement.
但他与他们战斗了很长一段时间，以至于特拉斯卡拉人和他达成了一种新的安排。
The Tlaxcalans again appreciate his strength, his power, his potential.
特拉斯卡拉人再次欣赏他的力量、力量和潜力。
They swing over to his side and will henceforward serve as guides and reinforcements for his expedition deeper into the interior.
他们转向他的身边，从此为他深入内陆的探险提供向导和增援。
Dwarkesh Patel Can we pause here and talk about the numbers?
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）我们可以在这里暂停一下，谈谈这些数字吗？
How many men had Cortés brought with him?
科尔特斯带了多少人？
Even the Tlaxcalans had much larger numbers than Cortés did.
甚至特拉斯卡拉人的人数也比科尔特斯多得多。
So even the standstill is an impressive military achievement, especially because he’s fighting without native support.
因此，即使是停滞状态也是一项令人印象深刻的军事成就，特别是因为他在没有本土支持的情况下进行战斗。
What are the numbers even at this point?
目前的数字是多少？
Si Sheppard A few hundred on Cortés’ side and multiple thousands on the Tlaxcalans’ side.
谢泼德 科尔特斯一方有数百人，特拉斯卡拉一方有数千人。
It’s at this point that the critical technological differentials from the Old and New World really begin to come into effect.
正是在这一点上，新旧世界的关键技术差异才真正开始生效。
The classic text which got me invested in this whole scenario in the first place is Jared Diamond ’s book, Guns, Germs, and Steel .
首先让我投入到整个场景中的经典文本是贾里德·戴蒙德（Jared Diamond）的书《枪炮、病菌与钢铁》。
He enumerates in the title those critical advantages that the Spaniards had.
他在标题中列举了西班牙人拥有的那些关键优势。
Guns in reality weren’t so significant.
现实中的枪支并没有那么重要。
Once the Native peoples got over the shock value, they appreciated, given the very slow reloading times involved in firearms at that time, that they weren’t so significant as assets on the battlefield.
一旦土著人民克服了震惊的价值，考虑到当时枪支的装弹时间非常缓慢，他们意识到枪支在战场上并不像资产那么重要。
But steel was critical.
但钢铁至关重要。
Local weapons were carved from wood and from stone and from obsidian , that volcanic glass which is razor sharp when honed to a point and quite dangerous as a slashing weapon.
当地的武器是用木头、石头和黑曜石雕刻而成的，黑曜石是一种火山玻璃，磨到一定程度后会变得锋利，作为砍伐武器相当危险。
But against the steel armor, and especially the steel helmets that the conquistadors were wearing, it was much less effective.
但面对钢铁铠甲，尤其是征服者所佩戴的钢盔，效果就差多了。
The conquistadors were drawing on military traditions of the Old World that went back generations, incorporating long Toledo steel sword blades.
征服者借鉴了旧世界几代人以来的军事传统，采用了长托莱多钢剑刀片。
They used those as thrusting weapons to take out indigenous warriors who were coming in with cut-and-slash weapons, which of course open up the side of the body to be taken out very early.
他们用这些作为刺击武器，干掉拿着砍杀武器进来的土著战士，这当然很早就打开了身体的一侧，以便取出。
The combination of the technology with generations of inherited military training and skill meant that the conquistadors had that critical edge on the battlefield.
该技术与几代人继承的军事训练和技能相结合，意味着征服者在战场上拥有关键优势。
Now, they weren’t invincible.
现在，他们并不是无敌的。
Cortés was again playing those mind games.
科尔特斯又开始玩那些心理游戏了。
He was taking casualties, and he was careful to bury his dead underneath the houses that they were sheltering in so the Tlaxcalans wouldn’t be aware that they were even having some successes in hand-to-hand combat.
他正在造成伤亡，他小心翼翼地将死者埋在他们避难的房屋下面，这样特拉斯卡拉人就不会知道他们甚至在肉搏战中取得了一些成功。
It was as much a mind game as it was a physical game.
这既是一场智力游戏，也是一场体力游戏。
The ultimate weapon, of course, that the conquistadors brought with them was their horses.
当然，征服者带来的终极武器是马匹。
I cannot overemphasize how vital the horse was to the conquistadors once they entered into the interior of the American continents.
一旦征服者进入美洲大陆的内陆地区，马对于他们来说是多么重要，我怎么强调都不为过。
They had the external asset.
他们拥有外部资产。
They had sail power, which enabled them to land anywhere they wanted on the coast.
他们拥有航行动力，这使他们能够在海岸上的任何地方着陆。
But in the interior, the horse was decisive.
但在内陆地区，马是决定性的。
There were no native equivalents.
没有本地对应的东西。
The horse originated in North America, but it had subsequently died out.
马起源于北美，但后来灭绝了。
The local peoples had not just no horses, but no beast of burden generally.
当地人不仅没有马，而且普遍没有驮兽。
That was not integrated into their economies, into their ways of life, or into their military.
这并没有融入他们的经济、生活方式或军队。
The Inca , whom we’ll discuss in a moment, did have one, which was the llama .
我们稍后将讨论的印加人确实有一个，那就是美洲驼。
When they campaigned, trailing for miles behind their armies would be these endless baggage trains of pack animals, llamas.
当他们征战时，这些驮畜、美洲驼的辎重车队会在他们的军队后面尾随数英里。
The Aztecs had no equivalent.
阿兹特克人没有类似的东西。
Their only domestic animals were the turkey and the Chihuahua.
他们唯一的家畜是火鸡和吉娃娃狗。
Speaking of dogs, the conquistadors also brought these big war mastiffs , these fighting dogs which wore armor and were trained to take down men.
说到狗，征服者还带来了这些大型战獒，这些斗犬穿着盔甲，经过训练可以击倒人类。
Again, imagine the terrifying impact that would have for the indigenous people.
再次想象一下这会给土著人民带来的可怕影响。
But the horse was the critical asset.
但马是重要的资产。
On attack, you could blast through any native formation which didn’t have not just the weapons, but the training or discipline to be able to stand up to massed shock cavalry.
在攻击时，你可以炸穿任何本地编队，这些编队不仅拥有武器，而且还拥有能够对抗大规模突击骑兵的训练或纪律。
If things were going bad for the conquistadors, they could retreat much faster than, of course, the enemies could chase them.
如果征服者的情况不妙，他们撤退的速度当然比敌人追赶他们的速度要快得多。
The Tlaxcalans appreciate all these assets coming together, and they see this as their opportunity.
特拉斯卡拉人很欣赏所有这些资产的结合，他们认为这是他们的机会。
They were the holdouts, the last remaining major entity in Mesoamerica which was still able to go toe-to-toe with the Aztecs.
他们是顽固分子，是中美洲最后一个仍然能够与阿兹特克人正面交锋的主要实体。
They’d been completely surrounded.
他们已经被完全包围了。
The Aztecs were upping the ante every year with these ceremonial flower wars , which were becoming more and more obviously wars of conquest.
阿兹特克人每年都通过这些仪式性的鲜花战争加大赌注，这些战争越来越明显地成为征服战争。
The Tlaxcalans had been cut off from the coast and from sources of salt.
特拉斯卡拉人与海岸和盐源的联系被切断。
So they were being pushed to the brink.
所以他们被逼到了崩溃的边缘。
This is a Hail Mary for them.
这对他们来说是万福玛利亚。
“If we ally with these outsiders, these strangers, who are just few in number after all, we may have some potential way to break out of this strategic trap that has been imposed upon us.”
“如果我们与这些外来者、这些陌生人结盟，毕竟他们的数量很少，我们可能有一些潜在的方法来突破强加给我们的这个战略陷阱。”
Si Sheppard They lean over to the side of Cortés, and they travel with him to Tenochtitlan , the capital, the glittering jewel in the midst of Lake Texcoco , the capital of the Aztec Empire .
斯·谢泼德 他们靠在科尔特斯身边，和他一起前往首都特诺奇蒂特兰，这是阿兹特克帝国首都特斯科科湖中闪闪发光的宝石。
Again, this is a dramatic moment when Cortés passes through the causeways out into the city and encounters Moctezuma II , the huey tlatoani as he was called, the Great Speaker, the emperor of the Aztec Empire.
这又是一个戏剧性的时刻，科尔特斯穿过堤道进入城市，遇到了蒙特祖玛二世，他被称为“伟大的演说者”，阿兹特克帝国的皇帝。
These two worlds come together at that moment.
这两个世界在那一刻融合在一起。
The interface between them was Cortés’s interpreter/mistress, Doña Marina , Malinche as she became known, who is translating from one side to the other.
他们之间的联络人是科尔特斯的翻译/情妇多娜·玛丽娜（Doña Marina），她被称为马林什（Malinche），她从一侧翻译到另一侧。
The dialogue that occurs then is one of those great tipping points in history.
当时发生的对话是历史上伟大的转折点之一。
What was the perspective of Moctezuma II?
蒙特祖玛二世的观点是什么？
He was aware Cortés was coming.
他知道科尔特斯要来。
This is his empire.
这是他的帝国。
He has envoys and emissaries and scouts and spies everywhere.
他在各地派有使节、密使、斥候和间谍。
They’re reporting back to him, “Something has washed up on the shores of our empire, and it is determined to meet with us.”
他们向他报告：“有东西被冲到了我们帝国的海岸上，它决定与我们会面。”
He initially bargains with Cortés, urging him to leave.
他最初与科尔特斯讨价还价，敦促他离开。
He provides him with precious gifts, which of course just inflames Cortés even more.
他为科尔特斯提供了珍贵的礼物，这当然更加激怒了科尔特斯。
Once he’s got hold of Aztec gold, he’s just determined to go all the way to the center.
一旦他获得了阿兹特克黄金，他就决心一路走到中心。
Moctezuma continues playing this double game.
蒙特祖玛继续玩这种双重游戏。
His advisors, his council, urge him not to allow Cortés to proceed to the capital.
他的顾问、他的议会敦促他不要允许科尔特斯前往首都。
His own brother, Cuitláhuac , tells him, “If you allow this man inside your house, he will take your house away from you.” But Moctezuma proceeds, and for that he’s been condemned by generations of historians.
他自己的兄弟 Cuitláhuac 告诉他：“如果你允许这个人进入你的房子，他就会从你手中夺走你的房子。”但蒙特祖马继续前进，并为此受到了几代历史学家的谴责。
This was a mistake to bring the conquistadors into the heart of the empire itself.
将征服者带入帝国的中心是一个错误。
I actually think that was his best option, whether he was aware of it or not, because it was better for him to have Cortés as his guest within Tenochtitlan than it was to have Cortés, this random element, at loose within his empire, talking to the subject peoples, inflaming them possibly against central authority.
事实上，我认为这是他最好的选择，无论他是否意识到这一点，因为对他来说，让科尔特斯作为他在特诺奇蒂特兰的客人比让科尔特斯这个随机的元素在他的帝国中逍遥法外，与臣民交谈，激怒他们可能反对中央权威，对他来说更好。
He felt perhaps Cortés was what he said he was, an envoy from a great emperor on the far side of the vast ocean.
他觉得科尔特斯也许正如他所说的那样，是来自大洋彼岸一位伟大皇帝的使者。
Cortés, again with the mind games, had no warrant to say he was a diplomat or ambassador for anybody.
科尔特斯再次进行了心理游戏，没有理由说他是任何人的外交官或大使。
He kept telling anyone who’d listen, “I speak for the mighty Charles V , the Holy Roman Emperor .” Of course, Charles V had no idea who Hernán Cortés was.
他不断告诉任何愿意听的人，“我代表强大的神圣罗马皇帝查理五世发言。”当然，查理五世并不知道埃尔南·科尔特斯是谁。
Cortés, again, is just winging it, just incredible improvisation here.
科尔特斯再次表示，他只是即兴发挥，只是令人难以置信的即兴创作。
And for a moment…
一会儿……
stasis.
停滞。
The great turning point comes when word arrives from the coast that one of the Aztec regional military officers, on his own initiative, has taken action against the conquistadors left behind on the coast, the ones with the Totonacs, and some of them have been killed.
当从海岸传来消息说，一名阿兹特克地区军官主动对留在海岸上的征服者（即托托纳克人）采取行动，其中一些人被杀时，伟大的转折点出现了。
Cortés seizes this as his pretext.
科尔特斯以此为借口。
He marches into the palace of Moctezuma II, the Aztec huey tlatoani , and tells him that for his own safety, he is now being taken under the protective custody of the Spanish, and he should come with him, or else there will be violence.
他走进阿兹特克人蒙特祖玛二世的宫殿，并告诉他，为了他自己的安全，他现在被西班牙人保护性拘留，他应该跟他一起去，否则就会发生暴力。
This is the moment when Moctezuma’s entire worldview just collapses.
这是蒙特祖玛整个世界观崩溃的时刻。
Nobody had spoken to him like this before.
以前没有人这样跟他说过话。
His psychology just disintegrates at that point, and he meekly allows himself to be led away.
那时他的心理就崩溃了，他温顺地让自己被带走了。
He tells his people, “Don’t resist.
他告诉他的人民：“不要反抗。
I don’t want bloodshed.
我不想流血。
I will pass with these strangers.” Then once Cortés has rounded up the officers from the coast responsible for turning on his men there, he has them, in front of the emperor and the entire court, burned alive, which is a form of punishment totally unknown to the Aztecs.
我会和这些陌生人一起过去。”然后，一旦科尔特斯从海岸围捕了那些负责在那里攻击他的部下的军官，他就会在皇帝和整个宫廷面前将他们活活烧死，这是阿兹特克人完全不知道的一种惩罚形式。
They watch this in grim silence.
他们在严峻的沉默中注视着这一切。
Once Cortés has seized the emperor himself, once he has Moctezuma, he already has the empire.
一旦科尔特斯亲自夺取了皇帝，一旦他拥有了蒙特祖玛，他就已经拥有了帝国。
He governs through what is increasingly becoming his puppet.
他通过日益成为他的傀儡的东西来进行统治。
Moctezuma seems to have fallen almost under the spell of Cortés, the classic Stockholm syndrome .
蒙特祖玛似乎几乎陷入了科尔特斯的魔咒，这是典型的斯德哥尔摩综合症。
He gives him a grand tour of the city.
他带他游览了这座城市。
Cortés, in again a subtle flex of his power, has brigantines , small sailing boats, built.
科尔特斯再次巧妙地发挥了他的权力，建造了双桅帆船，即小型帆船。
He takes Moctezuma with him on a sailing cruise on Lake Texcoco, and the emperor’s astonished at this new technology of using the wind to sail on the water.
他带着蒙特祖玛在特斯科科湖上航行，皇帝对这种利用风在水上航行的新技术感到惊讶。
Having the emperor was the key.
拥有皇帝是关键。
The emperor’s mistake wasn’t inviting Cortés into the city.
皇帝的错误在于没有邀请科尔特斯进城。
It was making himself vulnerable by staying there also in an adjacent palace.
住在邻近的宫殿里也让他变得脆弱。
If he had gone to some further location, made some excuse, a pilgrimage or an expedition of some kind, and had ruled through subordinates, Cortés would’ve been baffled.
如果他去了更远的地方，找个借口，朝圣或某种远征，并通过下属进行统治，科尔特斯就会感到困惑。
He couldn’t go chasing after the emperor.
他不能去追皇帝。
That would be obviously too provocative.
这显然太过挑衅了。
But without the emperor there, Cortés would have had his options extremely limited.
但如果没有皇帝在场，科尔特斯的选择就会极其有限。
I don’t know what he would’ve done in that circumstance.
我不知道他在那种情况下会做什么。
But because Moctezuma stayed in his capital, he made himself the target.
但由于蒙特祖马留在首都，他让自己成为了攻击目标。
Once he was taken, this was the key to controlling the entire empire at that point.
一旦拿下他，这就是当时控制整个帝国的关键。
Dwarkesh Patel Obviously the story continues from there, with La Noche Triste .
德瓦克什·帕特尔 (Dwarkesh Patel) 显然，故事从这里继续，《忧伤之夜》(La Noche Triste)。
What people might not appreciate about what happened here, in both the Pizarro story of the Inca Empire which we’ll talk about later, and in the Aztec story, is that in both cases the Spanish were themselves divided and in fact fighting each other.
人们可能不理解这里发生的事情，无论是我们稍后讨论的印加帝国的皮萨罗故事，还是阿兹特克故事，在这两种情况下，西班牙人本身都是分裂的，而且实际上是互相争斗。
So maybe you should tell the story of how Velázquez sends another expedition to capture and arrest Cortés for going beyond the prerogative of his mission.
所以也许你应该讲述委拉斯开兹如何派出另一支探险队去抓捕科尔特斯的故事，因为科尔特斯超越了他的任务特权。
Si Sheppard We left the governor on Cuba, of course, fuming.
谢泼德：当然，我们让古巴总督感到愤怒。
He rallies another expeditionary force because Cortés is stealing his thunder.
他召集了另一支远征军，因为科尔特斯抢了他的风头。
He sends this under Pánfilo de Narváez , a larger force than the one Cortés brought with him originally.
他将这支部队交给了潘菲洛·德·纳尔瓦埃斯指挥，这支部队比科尔特斯最初带来的部队还要强大。
This lands on the coast.
它降落在海岸上。
Cortés appreciates he has to move, so he leaves one of his subordinates, the hot-blooded Alvarado , behind in charge in Tenochtitlan, takes as many men as he can to the coast, confronts de Narváez, and defeats him in a minor battle.
科尔特斯意识到他必须离开，所以他留下了他的一名下属，热血的阿尔瓦拉多，留在特诺奇蒂特兰负责，他带着尽可能多的人到海岸，与德纳尔瓦埃斯对峙，并在一场小战斗中击败了他。
Again, diplomacy wins over the entire expeditionary force that the governor had dispatched.
外交再次赢得了总督派遣的全部远征军。
He tells them, “My friends, why are we fighting?
他告诉他们：“我的朋友们，我们为什么要打架？
We have the empire at my disposal.
我们拥有由我支配的帝国。
Join with me and we can share in the riches.” So he wins over the vast majority of this new force.
加入我，我们可以分享财富。”所以他赢得了这支新生力量的绝大多数。
It effectively becomes reinforcements, and he marches back to the capital.
这实际上成为了援军，他回到了首都。
He finds the mood has turned against him.
他发现气氛已经对他不利了。
The problem with being in charge is you can’t be everywhere.
负责的问题是你不可能无处不在。
His subordinate, assuming that the Aztecs were mobilizing against him, decided on a preemptive strike.
他的下属认为阿兹特克人正在动员起来反对他，因此决定先发制人。
There was a festival.
有一个节日。
The aristocracy, particularly the warrior caste, were celebrating, and Alvarado just descended on them and massacred everybody .
贵族们，尤其是武士阶层，正在庆祝，阿尔瓦拉多却突然袭击了他们，屠杀了所有人。
The survivors rally the population.
幸存者集结民众。
When Cortés returns, he finds himself effectively under siege.
当科尔特斯回来时，他发现自己实际上已经被围困了。
The people are so appalled now with the failure of their huey tlatoani that when he tries to pacify them, they throw stones at him.
人们现在对休伊·特拉托尼的失败感到非常震惊，以至于当他试图安抚他们时，他们向他扔石头。
Mortally wounded, he either dies or the Spanish finish him off , because he’s no longer of any use to them.
他受了致命伤，要么死去，要么被西班牙人消灭，因为他对他们不再有任何用处。
Now Cortés is trapped in Tenochtitlan.
现在科尔特斯被困在特诺奇蒂特兰。
He determines to break out, and that is, as you say, La Noche Triste, the Tragic Night, because so many of his men are left behind.
他决定突围，正如你所说，La Noche Triste，即悲惨之夜，因为他的许多人都被抛在了后面。
They’re either killed as they try to escape the city across the causeways or forced to retreat back to the palaces, where they’re taken alive and sacrificed subsequently.
他们要么在试图穿过堤道逃离城市时被杀，要么被迫撤回宫殿，随后被活捉并牺牲。
Cortés gets away with a minority of the troops still at his disposal and makes it back to Tlaxcalan territory.
科尔特斯带着少数仍由他调遣的部队逃脱并返回特拉斯卡兰领土。
That was the critical aspect, the two features of the entire campaign.
这是关键的方面，也是整个竞选活动的两个特点。
One, he has enough strike power with enough horses to defeat the Aztecs when they try to finish him off, at the Battle of Otumba .
第一，他拥有足够的攻击力和足够的马匹，可以在奥通巴战役中击败试图消灭他的阿兹特克人。
They feel he’s on the run.
他们觉得他在逃。
They have the numbers.
他们有数字。
The conquistadors are dragging their tails between their legs as they flee.
征服者们在逃跑时夹着尾巴。
Cortés himself is grievously wounded.
科尔特斯本人也受了重伤。
“We can finish them off.” They had the numbers.
“我们可以干掉他们。”他们有数字。
They were winning.
他们赢了。
But again, Cortés identifies where the Aztec general is.
但科尔特斯再次确定了阿兹特克将军的所在。
He rallies enough horsemen to blast through the Aztec ranks and take out their command and control.
他召集了足够多的骑兵来冲破阿兹特克人的队伍并夺取他们的指挥权和控制权。
The Aztec army disintegrates, and the Spanish are able to flee.
阿兹特克军队瓦解，西班牙人得以逃离。
The battlefield advantages, their horses, their steel, were critical, but just as critical was the diplomacy.
战场优势、他们的马匹、他们的钢铁至关重要，但外交也同样重要。
If the Tlaxcalans had turned on Cortés at that point, he would’ve been finished.
如果特拉斯卡拉人当时向科尔特斯发起进攻，他就完蛋了。
Not one Spaniard would’ve survived.
没有一个西班牙人能够幸存。
None of them would’ve made it back to the coast.
他们谁也无法回到海岸。
But the Tlaxcalans, for their own reasons, not out of any generosity or humanitarian impulse to welcome back the conquistadors, still see, “We are committed to these people and to our alliance.” So they give Cortés shelter.
但特拉斯卡拉人出于自己的原因，而不是出于欢迎征服者回归的任何慷慨或人道主义冲动，仍然认为，“我们致力于这些人民和我们的联盟。”所以他们为科尔特斯提供庇护。
He recovers physically, begins to rebuild his strength, and is determined to go back to Tenochtitlan for round two: “This time we’re not going to be indulging diplomatic niceties.”
他的身体恢复了，开始恢复体力，并决心回到特诺奇蒂特兰参加第二轮比赛：“这一次我们不会沉迷于外交礼节。”
The Tlaxcalans have their own perspective on this.
特拉斯卡拉人对此有自己的看法。
If you go to Tlaxcala, the territory today, the governor’s mansion there has murals on the wall, and these depict Cortés and the conquistadors from the Tlaxcalan point of view.
如果你去特拉斯卡拉，今天的领土，那里的总督官邸的墙上有壁画，这些壁画从特拉斯卡拉的角度描绘了科尔特斯和征服者。
It’s fascinating to look at how the relationship is not between a superior and an inferior.
看看这种关系不是上下级之间的关系是很有趣的。
It’s between equals.
这是平等之间的。
You see them depicted in the same scale, engaged in diplomacy between partners, not between subordinates and dominant figures.
你会看到他们以相同的比例描绘，从事伙伴之间的外交，而不是下属和统治人物之间的外交。
The Tlaxcalans drove a hard bargain.
特拉斯卡拉人进行了艰难的讨价还价。
“We want territory carved out of the Aztecs.
“我们想要从阿兹特克人手中夺取领土。
We want our own fortress in Tenochtitlan after this is over.” They saw this as them using the conquistadors, not the other way around, which is very important to bear in mind.
一切结束后，我们希望在特诺奇蒂特兰拥有自己的堡垒。”他们认为这是他们在利用征服者，而不是相反，这一点需要牢记在心。
The Aztec Empire from a distance, if you look at a map, seemed impressive.
如果你看地图，从远处看，阿兹特克帝国似乎令人印象深刻。
But this was an imperial construct, and not just the remaining independent entities like the Tlaxcalans, like the Tarascans , who we can discuss later, were hostile to the Aztecs.
但这是一个帝国的建构，不仅仅是像特拉斯卡兰这样剩余的独立实体，还有我们稍后讨论的塔拉斯卡人，都对阿兹特克人怀有敌意。
So were so many of their subordinated peoples.
他们的许多附属民族也是如此。
The Totonacs on the coast, the Chalco states on the shores of Lake Texcoco, they chafed under Aztec hegemony and authority.
沿海的托托纳克人，特斯科科湖畔的查尔科人，他们对阿兹特克人的霸权和权威感到愤怒。
They too saw the conquistadors as an opportunity to finally shrug off the authority and the demands of the Aztecs, and get revenge in a lot of ways.
他们也将征服者视为最终摆脱阿兹特克人的权威和要求并以多种方式进行报复的机会。
Cortés builds up for the final campaign against Tenochtitlan, against the new huey tlatoani , Cuitláhuac, and then, after he died, his brother, the last of the huey tlatoanis , Cuauhtémoc .
科尔特斯为对阵特诺奇蒂特兰的最后战役做准备，对阵新的休伊·特拉托尼人奎特拉瓦克，然后，在他去世后，他的兄弟，最后一个休伊·特拉托尼人库奥特莫克。
He has indigenous people flocking to his banner from all over Mesoamerica.
他让中美洲各地的土著人民纷纷涌向他的旗帜。
He emphasizes that he’s still in the fight.
他强调他仍在战斗中。
He still has those advantages.
他仍然拥有这些优势。
More reinforcements are arriving at the coast, and they’re being integrated into the conquistador army.
更多援军正在抵达海岸，他们正在被编入征服者军队。
But of the force that marches on Tenochtitlan, the conquistadors were maybe 0.5% in raw numbers.
但在进军特诺奇蒂特兰的军队中，征服者的原始人数可能只占 0.5%。
The overwhelming majority were other Mesoamerican peoples who see this as their final reckoning with the Aztecs.
绝大多数是其他中美洲民族，他们将此视为对阿兹特克人的最终清算。
This is the integration again of the technology with the diplomacy.
这是科技与外交的再次融合。
Cortés knows that to take the city, he has to control the lake.
科尔特斯知道，要占领这座城市，他必须控制湖泊。
Again, the innovations…
再次，创新...
They need sulfur for their gunpowder.
他们需要硫磺作为火药。
Their guns are useless without gunpowder.
他们的枪没有火药就毫无用处。
So an expedition goes into the mountains to the volcano, Popocatépetl , and they dangle with ropes inside the caldera of the volcano, scooping out the sulfur they need as the critical ingredient for their gunpowder.
因此，一支探险队深入山区，前往波波卡特佩特火山，他们用绳子在火山口内晃来晃去，舀出他们所需的硫磺，作为火药的关键成分。
Another one builds prefabricated brigantines, boats, in their different sections, and then has untold numbers of porters, human load-bearers, bring these prefabricated pieces over the mountains to the lake.
另一种方法是在不同的区域建造预制双桅船、小船，然后让无数的搬运工、人力搬运工将这些预制件翻山越岭运到湖边。
They’re assembled and let loose in the lake, and now they have control over the lake.
他们在湖中聚集并释放，现在他们已经控制了湖。
Bringing together the technology and the innovations with the local manpower, this is the force directed against Tenochtitlan in the final battle.
将技术和创新与当地人力结合起来，这就是在最后的战斗中对抗特诺奇蒂特兰的力量。
Dwarkesh Patel I actually didn’t know those stories.
Dwarkesh Patel 我其实不知道那些故事。
That’s crazy.
这太疯狂了。
One of the ways in which, to the extent people are even aware of the story, they might not understand what actually happened, is that they have this model of the Aztecs or the Incas as this cohesive single nation.
就人们甚至知道这个故事的程度而言，他们可能不明白到底发生了什么，其中一种方式是，他们将阿兹特克人或印加人视为这个有凝聚力的单一国家的模型。
A better model might be something like, imagine Russia and Ukraine have been doing trench warfare for 100 years.
更好的模型可能是这样的，想象一下俄罗斯和乌克兰已经进行了 100 年的堑壕战。
Imagine the animosity, and then also the Russians are taking tens of thousands of Ukrainians and doing human sacrifices with them.
想象一下这种敌意，然后俄罗斯人也带走了数万名乌克兰人并与他们一起进行活人祭祀。
Then some foreign force comes in and says to the Ukrainians, “We can help you march into Moscow.” I think they’d have pretty decent odds of getting some agreement there.
然后一些外国军队进来对乌克兰人说：“我们可以帮助你们进军莫斯科。”我认为他们在那里达成某种协议的可能性相当大。
Si Sheppard The old phrase is, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and in diplomacy and war, that’s always very true.
斯·谢泼德 有句老话说：“敌人的敌人就是我的朋友”，在外交和战争中，这句话总是千真万确的。
Dwarkesh Patel There are so many interesting questions to ask, everything from technology to diplomacy to disease to tactics.
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）有很多有趣的问题要问，从技术到外交，从疾病到战术，无所不包。
Before we get to that, just to round out the story, in many ways what’s striking about the conquest of the Incas in Peru under Pizarro 10 years later is how similar it was to Cortés’s story, how much he just followed the playbook.
在此之前，我们先来完善一下这个故事，十年后皮萨罗率领的秘鲁印加人的征服在很多方面都引人注目，这与科尔特斯的故事有多么相似，他在很大程度上遵循了剧本。
I want people to have a sense of roughly what happened here, starting with the Battle of Cajamarca , which might be the most astonishingly lopsided military encounter that has maybe ever happened in human history.
我希望人们能够大致了解这里发生的事情，从卡哈马卡战役开始，这可能是人类历史上发生过的最令人震惊的不平衡军事冲突。
If you can recapitulate at least that battle a bit, and then the overall story, then we can do some analysis from there.
如果你至少能稍微回顾一下那场战斗，然后是整个故事，那么我们就可以从那里做一些分析。
Si Sheppard Absolutely.
谢泼德绝对是。
When Cortés consummates his conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the last of the huey tlatoanis surrenders to him, and he occupies the territory and, most importantly, the top of the social hierarchy.
1521 年，科尔特斯完成了对特诺奇蒂特兰的征服，最后的休伊·特拉托尼人向他投降，他占领了这片领土，最重要的是，占领了社会等级的顶端。
The existing structure, as much as possible, is allowed to persist.
现有的结构尽可能地被允许保留。
The conquistadors just decapitate the local nobility and insert themselves at the top.
征服者只是砍掉当地贵族的头颅，将自己推上最高的地位。
Now, this is the playbook that will continue to be applied, less successfully, throughout the rest of Mesoamerica because the existing political entities there aren’t so sophisticated.
现在，这个剧本将继续在中美洲其他地区应用，但不太成功，因为那里现有的政治实体并不那么复杂。
Nonetheless, there are rumors — there are always rumors — of lost cities of gold.
尽管如此，还是有谣言——总是有谣言——关于失落的黄金之城。
More conquistadors are now flooding into the New World to seek advantage of this.
现在越来越多的征服者涌入新大陆以寻求利用这一机会。
One of these is a distant cousin of Cortés named Francisco Pizarro.
其中之一是科尔特斯的远房表弟，名叫弗朗西斯科·皮萨罗。
He met with Cortés and got the playbook, as you say, about how this is to be done.
正如你所说，他会见了科尔特斯并得到了关于如何做到这一点的剧本。
Then, in one of these conquistador business ventures, he finds the funding for men and ships and begins pushing south down the west coast of South America, crossing the equator and finally arriving in what is now modern-day Peru.
然后，在这些征服者的商业冒险中，他找到了人员和船只的资金，并开始沿着南美洲西海岸向南推进，穿越赤道，最终到达现在的秘鲁。
He encounters what he’s looking for: a sophisticated culture on the scale…
他遇到了他正在寻找的东西：规模庞大的复杂文化……
in fact, in terms of territory, on a much broader scale than Cortés had encountered in Mesoamerica.
事实上，就领土而言，其规模比科尔特斯在中美洲遇到的要广泛得多。
This is the land of the Inca.
这是印加人的土地。
When he arrived, there was civil war .
当他到达时，正值内战。
The previous Sapa Inca , Huayna Capac , had died in 1525, and his two sons, Atahualpa and Huáscar , turned on each other.
前任萨帕印加人华伊纳·卡帕克 (Huayna Capac) 于 1525 年去世，他的两个儿子阿塔瓦尔帕 (Atahualpa) 和华斯卡 (Huáscar) 互相反目。
Atahualpa had just won the civil war, and he was proceeding to Cuzco , the Inca capital, to be formally enthroned as the new Sapa Inca .
阿塔瓦尔帕刚刚赢得了内战，他正前往印加首都库斯科，正式登基成为新的萨帕印加人。
That’s when word arrives to him that strangers have entered his realm.
就在那时，他收到消息称陌生人已进入他的领域。
Again, we’re talking 168 men who have pushed into the Andes Mountains and are seeking him out for reasons unknown.
再说一次，我们谈论的是 168 名男子，他们已经深入安第斯山脉，出于未知原因正在寻找他。
He encounters them outside a place called, as you say, Cajamarca in 1532.
1532 年，他在一个叫卡哈马卡的地方外遇见了他们。
He sees not threat, but opportunity.
他看到的不是威胁，而是机遇。
Just like Moctezuma II had been advised not to treat with these people, so does Atahualpa’s envoy, who reports to him, “These are not men of good faith.
正如蒙特祖玛二世被建议不要与这些人打交道一样，阿塔瓦尔帕的特使也被建议不要与这些人打交道，他向他报告说：“这些人不是有诚意的人。
We can take them out.
我们可以把他们拿出来。
They tend to sleep together.
他们倾向于睡在一起。
At night, we can set fire to wherever they’re staying and just take them all out in one fell swoop.”
到了晚上，我们就可以在他们住的地方放火，一举把他们全部消灭掉。”
But Atahualpa is interested in what they have to offer him.
但阿塔瓦尔帕对他们为他提供的东西很感兴趣。
He’s seen the horses.
他见过马。
In fact, Pizarro made a specific case of impressing the Sapa Inca with his horses.
事实上，皮萨罗用他的马给萨帕印加留下了深刻的印象。
He sends one of his key lieutenants to put on a display of horsemanship.
他派了一位重要副官去表演马术。
Famously, he charges right at the Sapa Inca and all his court.
众所周知，他直接向萨帕印加及其整个宫廷发起冲锋。
The horse stops just inches from Atahualpa’s face, snorting and breathing.
马停在距离阿塔瓦尔帕脸仅几英寸的地方，喷着鼻息和呼吸。
Atahualpa is absolutely stony-faced and professes to be unimpressed and says, “I will meet with your master at a time of my choosing.” After the Spaniards leave, he has all of his court, including his generals who flinched or showed fear, executed just to make the point, “We’re not to be intimidated by these people.”
阿塔瓦尔帕面无表情，声称不为所动，说道：“我会在我选择的时间与你的主人会面。”西班牙人离开后，他处决了所有宫廷成员，包括退缩或表现出恐惧的将军，只是为了表明“我们不会被这些人吓倒”。
He sends a blocking force, tens of thousands of men, to cut off any retreat, and then he proceeds to meet with Pizarro at Cajamarca with the vast expanse of his army.
他派出数万人的阻击部队，切断退路，然后率领大军在卡哈马卡与皮萨罗会师。
There’s a saying in Peru that Atahualpa was planning to have Pizarro for lunch, but Pizarro ended up having him for breakfast.
秘鲁有一种说法，阿塔瓦尔帕本来打算请皮萨罗吃午餐，但皮萨罗最终却请他吃早餐。
Once he enters into the confines of a narrow, constricted courtyard space, that’s when Pizarro lets off the ambush.
一旦他进入一个狭窄的庭院空间，皮萨罗就会发动伏击。
He lets fly with all his artillery and all his musketry for the shock value, and unleashes his horses.
他用他所有的大炮和所有的步枪来获得冲击力，并释放了他的马匹。
Atahualpa himself is overwhelmed and taken prisoner at that point.
阿塔瓦尔帕本人此时不知所措并被俘虏。
This again is the playbook, the copybook, as you say.
正如你所说，这又是剧本、抄写本。
Go to the top.
去顶部。
Seize whoever is at the very pinnacle of the social hierarchy.
抓住处于社会等级制度最顶端的人。
You control the entire structure.
您控制整个结构。
Dwarkesh Patel Just so people know the numbers here, the Incan Empire overall has some 10 million inhabitants.
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）正如人们所知道的那样，印加帝国的居民总数约为 1000 万。
During this first battle where Pizarro encounters the emperor, he has some 160-190 conquistadors.
在皮萨罗与皇帝的第一次战斗中，他有大约 160-190 名征服者。
I don’t think the numbers are known for exactly how many Atahualpa had, but he’s facing off against the army that has just clinched the civil war in the Inca Empire, and it’s tens of thousands big.
我不认为阿塔瓦尔帕到底有多少人，但他面对的是刚刚结束印加帝国内战的军队，而且有数万人。
I’ve seen some numbers that are like 100,000 or 200,000, but certainly in the high tens of thousands.
我见过一些数字大约是 100,000 或 200,000，但肯定有数万。
So 100-something against almost 100,000.
所以 100 左右的人对抗近 100,000 人的人。
That’s the first battle.
这就是第一场战斗。
What is astonishing is that these 100 conquistadors kill…
令人惊讶的是，这100名征服者杀了……
I saw some numbers that are like 10,000 of the enemy, or at least thousands of Atahualpa’s troops.
我看到敌人的人数大约有一万人，或者至少有数千名阿塔瓦尔帕的军队。
They suffer zero casualties.
他们的伤亡为零。
So they kill close to 10,000 of the enemy and suffer zero casualties.
这样他们就杀死了近万名敌人，并且零伤亡。
This is the first encounter that the Inca Empire has ever had with the conquistadors.
这是印加帝国与征服者的第一次遭遇。
That must have been shocking from both sides’ perspective.
从双方的角度来看，这一定是令人震惊的。
If you can do some analysis here, how is it possible?
如果你能在这里做一些分析，那怎么可能呢？
How can you have a military outcome where you have literally a KD ratio of infinity: 10,000 to zero?
如果 KD 比率实际上是无穷大：10,000 比 0，那么如何才能取得军事成果呢？
Si Sheppard The conquistadors themselves admitted that the night before that encounter, there were so many campfires from the Inca army scattered across the hills surrounding Cajamarca that it looked like the twinkling of stars at night.
斯·谢泼德 征服者们自己也承认，在那次遭遇的前一天晚上，印加军队的篝火散布在卡哈马卡周围的山上，看起来就像夜晚闪烁的星星。
The conquistadors themselves admitted that when they saw the number of Inca troops filing into this courtyard, they were losing control of their own bladders out of fear.
征服者们自己也承认，当他们看到印加军队鱼贯而入这个庭院时，他们因恐惧而失去了对自己膀胱的控制。
They knew what the risks were here.
他们知道这里有什么风险。
But the shock value of that initial impetus was enough to carry them through.
但最初的动力所带来的震撼足以让他们渡过难关。
The Inca had never heard gunpowder weapons fired in any format before.
印加人以前从未听说过以任何形式发射火药的武器。
The ancestral founder of their empire was Pachacuti , which means the thunder bearer.
他们帝国的祖先创始人是帕查库蒂，意思是雷霆使者。
But to see a real-world exemplar of that must have been beyond shocking.
但看到现实世界的例子一定会令人震惊。
The actual physical damage that the cannons and arquebuses inflicted was relatively minor, but the explosion and the fact that these strangers seemed able to control the thunder must have been psychologically devastating.
大炮和火绳枪造成的实际物理伤害相对较小，但爆炸以及这些陌生人似乎能够控制雷霆的事实一定在心理上造成了毁灭性的打击。
Then it came down again to that steel and those horses.
然后又回到了钢铁和马匹的问题上。
When Pizarro unleashed the horses, this is something that the Inca…
当皮萨罗放开马匹时，印加人……
As you say, these are veteran warriors, the winners of a civil war, strategists at a tactical level within the framework of pre-Columbian Andean warfare.
正如你所说，他们是经验丰富的战士、内战的胜利者、前哥伦布时期安第斯战争框架内的战术层面的战略家。
They were the top dogs, but this is something outside of their entire understanding of the universe.
他们是最顶尖的，但这超出了他们对宇宙的全部理解。
They’d never seen a horse before or knew what it could do if you integrate a rider into the saddle with stirrups and the shock value of that charge.
他们以前从未见过马，也不知道如果将骑手与马镫和冲锋的冲击值结合到马鞍上，它会做什么。
They had no doctrine to push back against that.
他们没有任何学说可以反驳这一点。
The psychological impact was that they tried to flee.
心理影响是他们试图逃跑。
They were piling up against the walls in their desperation to scramble over them, to the point where the walls finally gave way under the press of all those bodies.
他们靠在墙上，拼命地想要爬过去，直到墙壁在这些尸体的挤压下终于塌陷了。
Some of them escaped into the countryside, and the Spaniards rode after them, just running them down as they fled.
他们中的一些人逃到了乡村，西班牙人骑马追赶他们，在他们逃跑时将他们追杀。
The only thing that stopped the massacre at the end was that night was falling, and the Spaniards in the darkness couldn’t continue the pursuit any longer.
最后唯一阻止屠杀的是夜幕降临，黑暗中的西班牙人无法再继续追击。
It’s what happens when something totally outside the universe of even veteran warriors plays out in a way that they have no mental appreciation of, or are unable to draw on any kind of library of how to respond to the situation.
当一些完全超出即使是经验丰富的战士的宇宙范围的事情发生时，就会发生这种情况，他们无法理解，或者无法利用任何类型的图书馆来应对这种情况。
The fight or flight instinct completely takes over, and flight was the winner in this instance.
战斗或逃跑的本能完全占据了主导地位，在这种情况下，逃跑是胜利者。
As you say, the only casualty was Pizarro himself.
正如你所说，唯一的伤亡者是皮萨罗本人。
He’s reaching for Atahualpa to take him prisoner, and one of his more enthusiastic comrades is slashing and manages to cut his hand as he does that.
他正伸手去抓阿塔瓦尔帕，想要把他俘虏，而他的一位更热情的战友正在挥砍，并成功割伤了他的手。
That was the only injury any of the conquistadors suffered at this critical moment.
这是征服者在这个关键时刻遭受的唯一伤害。
Dwarkesh Patel Give me a sense of how it is that, even if they’re on horses, they’re just so impenetrable.
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）：让我感受一下，即使他们骑在马上，他们也是如此难以捉摸。
Intuitively, you would think that if you have tens of thousands of troops, can’t you just swarm a cavalry?
直觉上你会想，你有几万大军，不就是蜂拥而至的骑兵吗？
Many of them will die, but just pull that guy in his steel armor off the stirrups, take him down, and then kill him.
他们中的很多人都会死，但只要把那个穿着钢甲的家伙从马镫上拉下来，把他打倒，然后杀了他。
Si Sheppard Europeans knew how to do that.
欧洲人谢泼德知道如何做到这一点。
The Swiss , for example, had already proved that a mounted knight could be knocked out of the saddle and defeated if you have men shoulder to shoulder, locked in place with long pikes to keep those horses at a distance and break up the impetus of their charge.
例如，瑞士人已经证明，如果你有肩并肩的人，并用长矛锁定在适当的位置，使这些马保持一定距离并瓦解他们冲锋的动力，那么骑马的骑士可能会被从马鞍上击落并击败。
But that requires, one, the technology and, two, the discipline, training, and institutional knowledge to do that.
但这需要，一是技术，二是纪律、培训和机构知识。
Mesoamerican warfare was very loose in its formation, warriors with a lot of space between them.
中美洲战争的阵型非常松散，战士之间有很大的空间。
It’s the worst thing that you can do in regards to cavalry, because the horses can take advantage of that looseness to just blast through any formation that’s coming at them.
对于骑兵来说，这是最糟糕的事情，因为马匹可以利用这种松散的优势来冲破任何向他们袭来的阵型。
Now, one depiction of the pre-Columbian societies is that they were somehow childlike, innocent, and couldn’t have responded.
现在，对前哥伦布时代社会的一种描述是，他们在某种程度上是孩子气的、天真的，而且无法做出反应。
They did try to.
他们确实尝试过。
It’s important to bear that in mind.
记住这一点很重要。
At every level, both the Aztec and the Inca sought to put in place countermeasures to negate the advantages that the conquistadors had.
在各个层面上，阿兹特克人和印加人都试图采取反措施来抵消征服者所拥有的优势。
One of the critical exemplars is confined space.
关键的例子之一是有限空间。
The Aztecs, when Cortés showed up in 1521 for round two, drew them into their city, which was a network of islands connected by bridges and causeways.
1521 年，当科尔特斯出现在第二轮比赛中时，阿兹特克人将他们吸引到了他们的城市，这是一个由桥梁和堤道连接起来的岛屿网络。
That minimized the advantages of the horses, because that’s not good horse country.
这最大限度地减少了马匹的优势，因为那不是一个好的马匹国家。
They learned to fight from rooftops and pelt the enemy with stones or whatever they could from heights.
他们学会了在屋顶上作战，并从高处用石头或任何能用的东西投掷敌人。
They built man-sized holes in buildings so they could slip from one to the other where the horses couldn’t chase them.
他们在建筑物上挖了人大小的洞，这样他们就可以从一处溜到另一处，而马匹无法追赶他们。
So they learned to use those kinds of advantages.
所以他们学会了利用这些优势。
They learned the stopping power of water.
他们了解了水的制动力。
Interestingly, both did this completely unconnected.
有趣的是，两者都是完全无关的。
They had no relationship with each other.
他们彼此之间没有任何关系。
Against Cortés, when he was taking one of the smaller cities on Lake Texcoco, Iztapalapa , the Aztecs broke the dikes in the lake and flooded the city, which took out a number of the conquistadors and their allies.
在对抗科尔特斯时，当他占领特斯科科湖上较小的城市之一伊斯塔帕拉帕时，阿兹特克人冲破了湖中的堤坝，淹没了这座城市，导致许多征服者及其盟友丧生。
In that environment, of course, the metal armor works to the disadvantage of the conquistador.
当然，在这种环境下，金属装甲对征服者来说是不利的。
It drags them to the bottom.
它将他们拖到底部。
If they’d waited until nightfall when the Spaniards were sleeping, they might have bagged all of them.
如果他们等到夜幕降临、西班牙人熟睡时，他们可能会把他们全部抓走。
The Inca too, later, when the conquistadors moved on Ollantaytambo , flooded the river.
后来，当征服者向奥扬泰坦博进军时，印加河也淹没了这条河。
They allowed it to burst its banks and again bogged down the conquistador cavalry.
他们任由它决堤，再次让征服者的骑兵陷入困境。
So they were adapting.
所以他们正在适应。
They took captured enemy weapons.
他们拿走了缴获的敌方武器。
They learned to fix conquistador swords to the end of long wooden poles, improvising pike tactics.
他们学会了将征服者的剑固定在长木杆的末端，即兴发挥长矛战术。
Again, without being instructed to, they just intuited that keeping horses at a distance with long spears would be a way to negate the advantages they had.
同样，在没有得到指示的情况下，他们只是直觉地认为用长矛与马匹保持一定距离将是抵消他们所拥有的优势的一种方法。
The Inca employed the bolas , which they’d used for hunting the great birds of South America, to tangle the legs of horses.
印加人用绳索缠住马腿，这是他们用来捕猎南美洲大鸟的。
In one famous incident, an Aztec warrior allowed himself to be speared by a conquistador and gripped hold of the lance as it was in his body, fixing the conquistador in place so his colleagues could swarm and take him out of the saddle.
在一次著名的事件中，一名阿兹特克战士让自己被征服者的长矛刺中，并紧紧抓住长矛，因为长矛就在他的身体里，将征服者固定在适当的位置，以便他的同事蜂拥而至，将他从马鞍上拉下来。
So they were trying to improvise.
所以他们试图即兴发挥。
The Aztecs used their captured Spanish prisoners to learn how to use captured crossbows.
阿兹特克人利用俘获的西班牙囚犯来学习如何使用俘获的弩。
The Inca, when they captured Spaniards, would use them to give instruction on how to use these firearms.
当印加人俘虏西班牙人时，他们会用他们来指导如何使用这些火器。
And Manco Inca , the leader of the Inca resistance, made a point of learning to ride a horse himself to demonstrate to his people, “We can do this.” They were trying, but the learning curve was so steep, and the timeframe to internalize foreign technology and foreign tactics was too short for them to really be able to deploy it to their advantage.
印加抵抗运动的领袖曼科·印加特意亲自学习骑马，向他的人民证明：“我们可以做到这一点。”他们正在尝试，但学习曲线是如此陡峭，而且内化外国技术和外国战术的时间太短，他们无法真正能够将其部署到自己的优势上。
Dwarkesh Patel This is worth emphasizing.
Dwarkesh Patel 这一点值得强调。
Cortés takes over the Aztec Empire in what is now Mexico in two and a half years.
科尔特斯在两年半内接管了阿兹特克帝国（位于现在的墨西哥）。
A couple hundred men, an empire of 6 million people, two and a half years.
几百个人，一个六百万人口的帝国，两年半的时间。
Pizarro does the same thing for the Inca Empire 10 years later in about five years.
10年后，皮萨罗在大约五年内为印加帝国做了同样的事情。
It’s insane how fast these conquests happened, and just how little time they had to adapt, even though in principle they could have figured out ways to combat cavalry and things.
令人疯狂的是，这些征服发生得如此之快，而他们需要适应的时间又是如此之少，尽管原则上他们本可以找到对抗骑兵和其他东西的方法。
All the while, their whole social structure is disintegrating, there’s disease, et cetera.
与此同时，他们的整个社会结构正在瓦解，出现疾病等等。
There’s all this psychological shock value.
这一切都具有心理震撼的价值。
Now, the obvious question to ask at this point, before we go to the other ones, is if you reran the simulation again and again, and you just changed a few things here and there — changed the leader for both the Aztecs or for the Spanish in these conquests — in what fraction of the simulations do the Spanish end up in control of these empires anyway within a matter of a few years?
现在，在我们讨论其他问题之前，在这一点上要问的一个明显的问题是，如果你一次又一次地重新运行模拟，并且你只是在这里和那里改变了一些东西——改变了阿兹特克人或西班牙人在这些征服中的领导者——在模拟的哪一部分中，西班牙人最终会在几年内控制这些帝国？
Because when you first learn about them, it sounds like an outrageous and impossible outcome that a few hundred men would take over empires of millions of people.
因为当你第一次了解他们时，几百人接管数百万人的帝国听起来是一个令人愤慨且不可能的结果。
When you learn more about it, you begin to think, “Well, I guess it couldn’t have been any other way.” But I don’t know if that is your opinion.
当你了解更多时，你开始思考，“好吧，我想不可能有其他方式。”但我不知道这是不是你的看法。
Si Sheppard In the grand scheme of things, there are multiple wheels that define history.
斯·谢泼德 在宏伟的计划中，有多个轮子定义历史。
The grand wheels that grind slowly are geography and climate, and then the small wheels in the foreground are the individuals, the key players themselves.
缓慢转动的大轮子是地理和气候，然后前景中的小轮子是个人，关键人物本身。
This is an integration of that process, the big wheels with the small ones.
这是这个过程的整合，大轮子与小轮子。
Yes, if Cortés had been taken out early, which could have happened on multiple occasions, the conquistadors, leaderless and rudderless, may well have just disintegrated, and the conquest may have been aborted at that level.
是的，如果科尔特斯早点被消灭的话（这种情况可能会发生多次），群龙无首的征服者很可能就会瓦解，征服也可能在那个层面上中止。
With Pizarro again, Atahualpa’s critical mistake was inserting himself into Pizarro’s trap.
皮萨罗再次出现，阿塔瓦尔帕的关键错误就是将自己陷入了皮萨罗的陷阱中。
If he had sent envoys to keep the negotiations at a distance, he may well have been able to frustrate Pizarro’s ambitions.
如果他派遣使者与谈判保持距离，他很可能能够挫败皮萨罗的野心。
As the head of what remained an integrated Inca Empire, he may have been able to use those numbers to win the campaign in the short term.
作为仍然是一个完整的印加帝国的领导人，他也许能够利用这些数字在短期内赢得竞选。
When the Inca did finally turn on the conquistadors, Francisco Pizarro had seized Cuzco and stripped the temples of their gold and silver — “the sweat of the sun and the tears of the moon,” as it was called — and shipped it back to Europe.
当印加人最终向征服者发起进攻时，弗朗西斯科·皮萨罗占领了库斯科，并抢走了神庙里的金银——被称为“太阳的汗水和月亮的眼泪”——然后运回欧洲。
He goes back to the coast to set up what would become the city of Lima, the modern capital of Peru.
他回到海岸建立了后来的秘鲁现代首都利马市。
The danger with Cuzco is the fact that it’s elevated and away from the coast, which is where the Spaniards, with their absolute monopoly over naval power, have the advantage.
库斯科的危险在于它地势较高，远离海岸，而这正是西班牙人凭借其对海军力量的绝对垄断而拥有的优势。
His problem was he left his half-brothers in charge back in Cuzco.
他的问题是他把自己的同父异母兄弟留在了库斯科。
They provoke Manco Inca, who’d been set up as Pizarro’s puppet ruler, into outright rebellion.
他们激怒了被任命为皮萨罗傀儡统治者的曼科·印加，彻底叛乱。
He rallies his people.
他团结他的人民。
He lays siege to Cuzco .
他围攻库斯科。
He takes Sacsayhuamán , the great fortress that dominates Cuzco, and he has one of his generals, Quizu Yupanqui , cut off reinforcements arriving from the coast.
他占领了控制库斯科的大要塞萨克赛瓦曼，并让他的一位将军基祖·尤潘基切断从海岸抵达的援军。
The Inca could win set-piece confrontations if they used their terrain and their knowledge of it to their advantage.
如果印加人利用他们的地形和对地形的了解来发挥自己的优势，他们就可以赢得定位球对抗。
Pizarro from Lima on the coast is taking reinforcements and pushing them into the interior to relieve Cuzco.
来自海岸利马的皮萨罗正在招募增援部队，并将他们推入内陆以解救库斯科。
Quizu is waiting till they enter narrow defiles and passes through the mountains, blocking both ends, and then using boulders and other material to just obliterate them from the heights.
奎祖等待着他们进入狭窄的隘口，穿过山脉，将两端堵住，然后用巨石等材料从高处将他们抹杀。
More and more of these Spanish expeditions are being annihilated.
越来越多的西班牙探险队被歼灭。
At that level, when they use the terrain and their institutional knowledge of it to their advantage, the Inca are able to win set-piece battles, but they can’t seal the deal in Cuzco.
在这个水平上，当印加人利用地形和对地形的制度知识来发挥自己的优势时，他们能够赢得定位球战斗，但他们无法在库斯科达成协议。
Manco makes the mistake of ordering Quizu to attack Lima.
曼科错误地命令基祖进攻利马。
He feels, “We have the advantage now.
他觉得，“我们现在有优势。
I’ve bottled them up in Cuzco.
我把它们装在库斯科了。
We’ve annihilated their relief columns.
我们已经消灭了他们的救援纵队。
Take out their city on the coast, and the problem is over.” But attacking Lima meant passing across open ground, where the Spanish then unleashed their advantage.
干掉他们沿海的城市，问题就解决了。”但攻击利马意味着要穿越开阔的场地，西班牙人随后在那里释放了他们的优势。
The general is killed, and the whole assault collapses.
将军阵亡，整个攻势崩溃。
Back in Cuzco, yes, there’s a handful of Spaniards holed up in just a couple of fortified buildings, desperately holding on.
回到库斯科，是的，有一些西班牙人躲在几座防御工事的建筑里，拼命地坚持着。
Day and night, they’re under assault: the psychological aspect of it, the beating of drums, the chanting, and the constant rain of missiles to set their buildings on fire.
他们日日夜夜都受到攻击：心理方面的攻击、鼓声、口号以及持续不断的导弹，点燃了他们的建筑物。
They would’ve been wiped out except for two reasons.
如果没有两个原因，他们就会被消灭。
One, the open courtyards and plazas of Cuzco are good terrain for cavalry, and they still have their horses.
第一，库斯科开阔的庭院和广场是骑兵的良好地形，他们仍然有马匹。
And secondly, critically, the asset through diplomacy of the local peoples — the subordinated mitimaes , they were called, or yanakuna , serfs, the defeated and subordinated people the Inca had brought forcibly within their imperial structure, chafing under those authorities — who see these outsiders as their chance to finally break free of Inca authority.
其次，至关重要的是，通过当地人民的外交获得的资产——他们被称为从属的米蒂玛（mitimaes），或亚纳库纳（yanakuna）农奴，印加人将战败的、从属的人民强行带入他们的帝国结构，对这些当局感到愤怒——他们将这些外来者视为最终摆脱印加权威的机会。
So strangely enough as it may seem, more local peoples kept joining the besieged Spaniards during the whole Battle of Cuzco , which played out over many, many months.
看起来很奇怪，在整个库斯科战役中，越来越多的当地人加入了被围困的西班牙人，这场战役持续了很多很多个月。
The Spaniards end up with more allies than they started with during this battle, because there were so many people within the Inca Empire — from the Cañari , who were from Ecuador, to the Chachapoya from the Amazon Basin, to even the Aymara , who used to be rivals with the Inca for control of Cuzco itself — who increasingly side with the Spaniards.
西班牙人最终在这场战斗中获得了比开始时更多的盟友，因为印加帝国内部有太多人——从厄瓜多尔的卡纳里人到亚马逊盆地的查查波亚人，甚至曾经与印加人争夺库斯科本身控制权的艾马拉人——越来越多地站在西班牙人一边。
That local manpower was the critical asset.
当地的人力是重要的资产。
Without that, yes, they would’ve been wiped out at Cuzco.
是的，如果没有这个，他们就会在库斯科被消灭。
Again, it’s the Spaniards inserting themselves into an imperial orbit, which from a distance looks impressive with its geographic expanse and its total population, but which had been ruthlessly dictated to by a tiny elite of a hierarchy who had imposed themselves over the entire system.
再一次，西班牙人将自己插入了一个帝国轨道，从远处看，它的地理范围和总人口令人印象深刻，但它是由将自己强加于整个体系的等级制度中的一小部分精英无情地决定的。
Remember, only a small number of people spoke Nahuatl , the imperial language of the Aztecs.
请记住，只有少数人说纳瓦特尔语，这是阿兹特克人的帝国语言。
Only a small number spoke Quechua , the imperial language of the Inca themselves.
只有少数人讲盖丘亚语，这是印加人自己的皇家语言。
It was the Inca Empire, but it was constructed from multiple different ethnicities.
那是印加帝国，但它是由多个不同种族组成的。
When they saw their chance, they took it to side with the Spaniards.
当他们看到机会时，他们站在了西班牙人一边。
Dwarkesh Patel It’s worth remembering that the Aztecs and the Incas were themselves the equivalent of the conquistadors in their own world.
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）值得记住的是，阿兹特克人和印加人本身就相当于他们自己世界中的征服者。
There’s 100,000 or so actual Incas that are controlling an empire of 10 million people.
大约有 10 万左右的实际印加人控制着一个拥有 1000 万人口的帝国。
So they are themselves an imperial force.
所以他们本身就是一支帝国军队。
Going back to the question of how contingent these victories were, it sounds like you’re saying they are contingent, because you’re pointing out all these cases in which, if things had gone slightly differently, the siege of Cuzco would’ve worked, or Cortés would’ve been killed in battle.
回到这些胜利有多么偶然的问题，听起来你是在说它们是偶然的，因为你指出了所有这些情况，如果情况稍有不同，围困库斯科就会成功，否则科尔特斯就会在战斗中阵亡。
Si Sheppard The ultimate factor comes down to those background forces, the great wheels that grind through history.
斯·谢泼德 最终因素归结于那些背景力量，即磨砺历史的伟大车轮。
Geography and climate structure one other factor.
地理和气候结构是另一个因素。
The fact that Eurasia was so stacked with domesticable animals — sheep, cows, goats, mules, pigs, and above all, horses — and human interaction in biomes with those domesticated animals, created the context for the evolution of contagious diseases, endemic or pandemic, that ripped back and forth through Eurasia.
事实上，欧亚大陆充满了可驯化的动物——绵羊、牛、山羊、骡子、猪，尤其是马——以及人类在生物群落中与这些驯化动物的互动，为传染病、地方性或大流行病的演变创造了背景，这些疾病在欧亚大陆来回传播。
We’re familiar with all their names.
他们的名字我们都很熟悉。
That never occurred in the New World.
这在新世界从未发生过。
The people there had no acquired immunity to diseases such as the big one, smallpox .
那里的人们对诸如天花这样的大疾病没有获得性免疫力。
But beyond that, there was a whole galaxy of communicable diseases that we’re now familiar with as being universal.
但除此之外，还有一系列我们现在熟知的普遍存在的传染病。
Even if the Aztecs and Inca had won the short-term proximate victories, the longer-term demographic crisis would have undermined the functional capacity of their societies to remain integrated and to resist much longer.
即使阿兹特克人和印加人赢得了短期的近期胜利，长期的人口危机也会削弱其社会保持一体化和长期抵抗的功能能力。
The pressure within them from their subject peoples, as they felt the authority of their overlords beginning to weaken, would’ve led to their fragmentation, which is the overarching cycle of pre-Columbian societies generally.
当他们感到宗主国的权威开始削弱时，他们内部来自臣民的压力将导致他们的分裂，这通常是前哥伦布社会的总体循环。
They’re extremely impressive, in fact, more impressive when you consider the disadvantages they had to struggle with.
他们非常令人印象深刻，事实上，当你考虑到他们必须克服的缺点时，更令人印象深刻。
Their pyramids were built not through the assistance of beasts of burden or even the wheel, but simply through pure manpower and the application of that to construct them.
他们的金字塔不是通过驮兽甚至轮子的帮助建造的，而是简单地通过纯粹的人力和人力来建造它们。
The subject peoples would have broken for freedom, and we see the recurring cycle of Mesoamerican history, for example.
臣民们可能会为了自由而决裂，例如，我们看到中美洲历史的循环往复。
When Cortés arrived, Tenochtitlan was one of the greatest metropolises perhaps on Earth: beautiful, rich, and heavily populated.
当科尔特斯到达时，特诺奇蒂特兰可能是地球上最大的大都市之一：美丽、富裕、人口稠密。
100 years later, if he’d arrived in 1619 as opposed to 1519, he would’ve found a swamp with moss-covered mounds and hills rising out of it.
100 年后，如果他是在 1619 年而不是 1519 年到达的话，他会发现一片沼泽，里面长满了苔藓，丘陵从沼泽中拔地而起。
The parallel to that, of course, is Teotihuacan , the previous great metropolis which dominated Mesoamerica.
当然，与此类似的是特奥蒂瓦坎，这是以前主宰中美洲的大都市。
It rose.
它上升了。
It expanded.
它扩大了。
It attracted a huge population.
它吸引了大量人口。
It overstressed its environment, and it collapsed.
它对环境的压力过大，最终崩溃了。
I think the Aztecs naturally would’ve gone the same way.
我认为阿兹特克人自然也会走同样的路。
One way or another, the Spanish, or even subsequent waves of European colonists, would’ve entrenched themselves at the coast and would have perhaps more slowly pushed inland.
不管怎样，西班牙人，甚至后来的一波又一波的欧洲殖民者，都会在海岸扎根，也许会更缓慢地向内陆推进。
It’s possible that you would see a more balanced relationship between the colonists and the indigenous peoples, but I think in the longer term they all would’ve been folded into the grand European imperial framework.
你可能会看到殖民者和土著人民之间的关系更加平衡，但我认为从长远来看，他们都会被纳入欧洲帝国的宏伟框架中。
Dwarkesh Patel We do know examples of other native forces who resisted European powers for a very long time.
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel） 我们确实知道其他本土力量长期抵抗欧洲列强的例子。
I think there’s some platoon or army that has just finished fighting during the American Civil War that has to go down and then fight some native tribes.
我认为在美国内战期间，有一些排或军队刚刚结束战斗，必须下山然后与一些土著部落作战。
Even late into the 19th century, native forces were able to resist European incursions.
即使到了 19 世纪末，当地军队仍然能够抵抗欧洲人的入侵。
Of course, we know about the Comanche and so forth.
当然，我们知道科曼奇等等。
It does seem to me that maybe just because they were so centralized, you get the emperor and the whole thing falls, whereas other tribes were more dispersed.
在我看来，也许正是因为他们如此集中，你有了皇帝，整个事情就崩溃了，而其他部落则更加分散。
Si Sheppard You’re absolutely right.
谢泼德 你说得完全正确。
The key term there, as you used it, was dispersal.
正如您所使用的那样，那里的关键术语是分散。
The vulnerability of the Aztec and the Inca was that hierarchical nature of their society and the absolute loyalty that the system had invested into whoever was atop the social hierarchical tree: the huey tlatoani for the Aztecs, the Sapa Inca for the Inca themselves.
阿兹特克人和印加人的脆弱性在于他们社会的等级性质，以及该制度对社会等级树顶端的人的绝对忠诚：阿兹特克人的休伊·特拉托尼（huey tlatoani），印加人自己的萨帕印加人（Sapa Inca）。
Taking that individual destabilizes the whole system, and potentially even means that it can be functionally governed through the use of intermediaries or even puppets.
拿走这个人会破坏整个系统的稳定性，甚至可能意味着可以通过使用中介甚至傀儡来对其进行功能性管理。
The dispersed peoples, as you say, the Comanche, even the Maya in Mesoamerica, whose city-states jealously asserted and defended their autonomy against each other, meant that the Spanish couldn’t take out the Maya in one fell swoop.
正如你所说，科曼奇人，甚至是中美洲的玛雅人，他们的城邦相互嫉妒地主张和捍卫自己的自治权，这些分散的民族意味着西班牙人无法一举消灭玛雅人。
They couldn’t do to the Maya what they’d done to the Aztecs and the Inca.
他们无法像对待阿兹特克人和印加人那样对待玛雅人。
They had to reduce their cities one by one.
他们不得不一座一座地缩小自己的城市。
That was a long, laborious process that took almost to the end of the 17th century to finally consummate.
这是一个漫长而艰苦的过程，几乎要到 17 世纪末才最终完成。
Even then there was still smoldering dissent.
即便如此，仍然存在着郁积的异议。
In many ways, you can go to the highlands of Central America and they still speak the ancestral languages as the first one before they speak Spanish.
从很多方面来说，你可以去中美洲的高地，他们仍然先讲祖先的语言，然后再讲西班牙语。
Yes, colonizing powers can find aggressive bite-back.
是的，殖民国家会遭到侵略性的反击。
Just look at Custer’s Last Stand as late as 1876 here in America, the entire 7th Cavalry wiped out at the Little Bighorn because they lost the initiative.
看看卡斯特在美国的背水一战，早在1876年，第七骑兵团就因为失去主动权而在小比格霍恩战役中全军覆没。
At that point, they were fighting warriors who had come together temporarily, riding horses, firing guns, and then dispersing afterwards.
那时，他们正与暂时聚集在一起的武士战斗，骑马，开枪，然后散去。
It was very hard to pin them down.
很难确定他们的情况。
That was often a frustrating aspect.
这常常是一个令人沮丧的方面。
It took a long process of what amounts to really total war — setting up barbed wire everywhere and of course slaughtering the buffalo to take away the basis for their culture and their food chain — to finally bring the last holdouts to heel.
经过了一个漫长的过程，相当于真正的全面战争——到处设置铁丝网，当然还有屠杀水牛，以剥夺他们的文化和食物链的基础——最终让最后的顽固分子屈服。
So it can be a long, protracted process.
因此，这可能是一个漫长的过程。
The Inca and Aztecs themselves found that out.
印加人和阿兹特克人自己也发现了这一点。
They never consummated even incorporating their entire zones within their empires.
他们甚至从未完成将整个地区纳入他们的帝国。
The Aztecs had surrounded and were slowly reducing the Tlaxcalans.
阿兹特克人包围了特拉斯卡拉人，并正在慢慢消灭他们。
But to the west, in what’s Michoacán , the Purépecha people, or as they’re called today, the Tarascans, had an empire of their own, and they were able to go toe-to-toe with the Aztecs.
但在西部的米却肯州，普雷佩查人，或者今天所说的塔拉斯坎人，拥有自己的帝国，他们能够与阿兹特克人正面交锋。
The first time the Aztecs crossed into Tarascan territory, it was a disaster.
阿兹特克人第一次进入塔拉斯坎领土时，是一场灾难。
A key reason for that was actually technology.
造成这种情况的一个关键原因实际上是技术。
The Aztecs had no connection with South America.
阿兹特克人与南美洲没有任何联系。
The Tarascans somehow did.
塔拉斯坎人不知何故做到了。
We know from linguistic evidence and costume choice there was some exchange of flora and fauna, and above all in technology.
从语言证据和服装选择中我们知道，动植物之间存在一些交流，尤其是在技术方面。
The Tarascans could smelt metal.
塔拉斯坎人可以冶炼金属。
Like the Inca, they could smelt copper, and they used that to form the points of their arrows.
像印加人一样，他们可以熔炼铜，并用铜来制作箭尖。
Their massed archers with their copper-tipped arrows were decimating the invading Aztec forces.
他们的大量弓箭手手持铜尖箭，正在消灭入侵的阿兹特克军队。
The exchange, if it had been on a broader scale between north and south, would’ve been potentially an equalizing force.
如果这种交流在南北之间进行更广泛的规模，那么它可能会成为一种平衡力量。
If the Aztec had had llamas from South America, it would’ve been dramatically to their advantage.
如果阿兹特克人有来自南美洲的美洲驼，那将对他们产生巨大的优势。
Dwarkesh Patel There is tin in the New World.
德瓦克什·帕特尔 新大陆有锡。
So no bronze?
那么没有青铜吗？
Why do we not get bronze with copper and tin?
为什么我们不用铜和锡来得到青铜呢？
Si Sheppard They’d never made it, certainly not in Mesoamerica, where everything was stone.
谢泼德：他们从来没有成功过，尤其是在中美洲，那里的一切都是石头。
They had the worst of both worlds.
他们经历了两全其美的最糟糕的情况。
They could smelt silver and gold to attract the greed of the Spaniards, but they couldn’t smelt iron to hold them off.
他们可以冶炼银和金来吸引西班牙人的贪婪，但他们无法冶炼铁来阻止他们。
Dwarkesh Patel But before that, you would’ve thought that they would’ve done copper, tin…
Dwarkesh Patel 但在此之前，你可能会认为他们会做铜、锡……
get bronze.
获得铜牌。
Si Sheppard They did have bronze in the Inca world.
斯·谢泼德 他们在印加世界确实拥有青铜器。
If the Aztecs had had access to that, again, it would have given them a much more aggressive fighting stance.
如果阿兹特克人能够再次获得这一点，他们将会采取更加激进的战斗姿态。
Bronze can’t stand up against iron, but it’s better than stone.
铜虽敌不过铁，但胜于石。
Dwarkesh Patel Or obsidian.
Dwarkesh Patel 或黑曜石。
This is an important part of what happens here, which is that the Europeans are learning from each other, but the natives are not learning from each other.
这是这里发生的事情的一个重要部分，即欧洲人正在互相学习，但当地人却没有互相学习。
Cortés learned from the conquest of Hispaniola .
科尔特斯从征服伊斯帕尼奥拉岛中吸取了教训。
Of course, he has a ton of improvisation in the way he approaches the conquest of the Aztecs.
当然，他在征服阿兹特克人的方式上有大量的即兴发挥。
Then Pizarro knows the whole details of what Cortés did a decade earlier and basically follows the same playbook.
然后皮萨罗知道科尔特斯十年前所做的全部细节，并且基本上遵循相同的剧本。
It’s not clear to me that the Incas even knew the Aztecs existed.
我不清楚印加人是否知道阿兹特克人的存在。
So you just have a much greater accumulation of knowledge than the other one is able to accumulate.
所以你所积累的知识比其他人能够积累的多得多。
Si Sheppard They’re closed worlds.
Si Sheppard：它们是封闭的世界。
They were very insular in their societies.
他们在社会中非常孤立。
To go further back in time, the only divergence that would’ve given pre-Columbian peoples a real long-term chance to hold off the Europeans is if we reverse the clock another 500 years back to Leif Erikson and the Norse in Greenland.
回溯到更远的时间，唯一能让前哥伦布时代的人们有真正长期机会阻挡欧洲人的分歧是，如果我们把时钟再倒退500年，回到莱夫·埃里克森和格陵兰岛的挪威人。
They knew of the existence of North America — Helluland , Markland , and Vinland , as they called them, as they explored them.
他们在探索北美时就知道了北美的存在——他们称之为“海鲁兰”、“马克兰”和“文兰”。
They tried to colonize the New World.
他们试图殖民新世界。
Their numbers were too few, the local resistance was too fierce, and they were forced out.
他们人数太少，当地抵抗太激烈，他们被赶了出去。
If the Vikings had been able to claim a long-term presence in the New World, they may have been able to drip-feed European technology, European beasts of burden, and above all, European diseases slowly into the Americas, so that 500 years later, when the conquistadors did show up, they’d have met a people who had some resistance to European diseases, knew how to work iron, and were riding horses.
如果维京人能够在新大陆长期存在，他们也许能够将欧洲的技术、欧洲的驮兽，尤其是欧洲的疾病慢慢地传播到美洲，这样，500年后，当征服者真正出现时，他们就会遇到一个对欧洲疾病有一定抵抗力、知道如何炼铁、会骑马的民族。
If that was the case, all bets are off.
如果真是这样，那么所有的赌注都失败了。
Dwarkesh Patel That would be such an interesting history.
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）那将是一段非常有趣的历史。
What does the New World look like if the Vikings had actually set up there?
如果维京人真的在那里定居，新世界会是什么样子？
That’s very interesting.
这很有趣。
Si Sheppard Essentially, the key to it was following the blueprint as closely as possible.
Si Sheppard 从本质上讲，关键是尽可能严格遵循蓝图。
Go right to the top, establish a coastal settlement — which Cortés also was very invested in — so you have a secure base to fall back to if what’s happening in the interior is not playing out.
直接到达顶部，建立一个沿海定居点——科尔特斯对此也投入了大量资金——这样，如果内陆地区发生的事情没有发生，你就有一个安全的基地可以退回。
A base on the coastline was key.
海岸线上的基地是关键。
Originally with the conquistadors, but more broadly the Portuguese, British, and French subsequently, they would build those key strongholds on the coast, which, because of their monopoly over nautical technology, meant they were effectively unable to be extricated by any local indigenous population.
最初是与征服者一起，但后来更广泛地与葡萄牙、英国和法国一起，他们将在海岸上建立这些关键的据点，由于他们对航海技术的垄断，这意味着他们实际上无法被任何当地土著居民解救。
That’s one thing that people tend to underestimate with the success of European expansion.
这是人们往往低估欧洲扩张成功的一件事。
At the end of the day, they had the fortresses, and again, the long institutional knowledge of what a perfect fortress should look like: those jagged-edged star perimeters and revetments and battlements which maximized firepower.
归根结底，他们拥有了堡垒，并且再次拥有了关于完美堡垒应该是什么样子的长期制度知识：那些锯齿状边缘的星形边界、护岸和城垛，可以最大限度地发挥火力。
Even Eurasian cultures, even the Qing Chinese , struggled to be able to deal with that.
即使是欧亚文化，甚至清代中国人，也难以应对这一问题。
The peoples of the pre-Columbian Americas had no real chance of storming defenses on that kind of a scale.
前哥伦布时代的美洲人民没有真正的机会以这种规模冲击防御工事。
The Inca and Aztecs didn’t even have siege warfare.
印加人和阿兹特克人甚至没有攻城战。
They didn’t have siege weapons, battering rams, catapults, nothing like that.
他们没有攻城武器、攻城锤、投石车之类的东西。
Once the Europeans dug into fortified positions, it was very hard to move them out of that.
一旦欧洲人挖出了坚固的阵地，就很难将他们从那里移动出来。
Pizarro’s own environment was quite different from that of Cortés.
皮萨罗自己的环境与科尔特斯的环境截然不同。
The highlands of Mexico are quite elevated, but the Andes Mountains that the conquistadors were moving into…
墨西哥的高地相当高，但征服者正在进入的安第斯山脉……
I’ve been at elevation in the Himalayas and I was struggling to breathe with the altitude sickness.
我曾在喜马拉雅山的高海拔地区，因高原反应而呼吸困难。
How they were able to move to those heights and then be able to fight battles is really astonishing.
他们如何能够达到这样的高度，然后能够进行战斗，真是令人惊讶。
Si Sheppard It speaks to their physical stamina, honed over many years of hard living, and the core motivations.
Si Sheppard 这说明了他们多年艰苦生活磨练出来的体力和核心动力。
“This had better be worth it.” That’s why Cortés and Pizarro were always first among equals.
“这最好是值得的。”这就是为什么科尔特斯和皮萨罗总是在平等中名列前茅。
They had to keep demonstrating success.
他们必须不断展示成功。
They had to be the alpha dog in all circumstances, because around them were many ambitious men, some of whom had titles or claims that were just as legitimate as Cortés’s or Pizarro’s.
在任何情况下，他们都必须成为头号狗，因为他们周围有许多雄心勃勃的人，其中一些人拥有与科尔特斯或皮萨罗一样合法的头衔或主张。
Cortés was always on top of that situation.
科尔特斯总是掌控着这种情况。
Pizarro, of course, at the end lost control.
当然，皮萨罗最终失去了控制。
He met his end as a rival faction stormed his household.
当敌对派系袭击他的家人时，他的生命就结束了。
He went down fighting, not against the indigenous people, but against his fellow Spaniards.
他倒下的战斗不是针对土著人民，而是针对他的西班牙同胞。
Dwarkesh Patel What I find interesting about these conquests is that once the emperor’s captured — Atahualpa for the Incas and Moctezuma for the Aztecs — what is it that they think is going to happen?
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）：我对这些征服活动感兴趣的是，一旦皇帝被俘——印加人的阿塔瓦尔帕和阿兹特克人的蒙特祖玛——他们认为会发生什么？
Why are they cooperating?
他们为什么要合作？
What is the end story in which they come out on top?
他们最终脱颖而出的最终故事是什么？
Do they think that the Spanish were going to leave if they gave them enough gold?
他们是否认为如果西班牙人给了他们足够的黄金，他们就会离开？
What is their endgame there?
他们的结局是什么？
Si Sheppard That’s a good question.
谢泼德 这是个好问题。
With Moctezuma II, from the moment when Cortés seized him…
对于蒙特祖玛二世，从科尔特斯抓住他的那一刻起……
Previously, the records of Moctezuma reflect that he was a pitiless autocrat.
此前，蒙特祖马的记录反映出他是一个无情的独裁者。
He centralized all power in the aristocracy.
他将所有权力集中在贵族手中。
Previously, it used to be possible to work up from outside the circle into the inner circle, but he forbade that.
以前是可以从外圈进入内圈的，但他禁止这样做。
He was almost Stalinist in his authority over his underlings.
他对下属的权威近乎斯大林主义。
He was the one who was amping up the ritualistic flower wars into successive campaigns of encirclement and annihilation for the Tlaxcalans.
他是将仪式化的鲜花战争升级为对特拉斯卡拉人的连续围剿行动。
He was, in every sense of the word, an autocrat.
从任何意义上来说，他都是一个独裁者。
Perhaps being told what to do for the first time in his life just led to a complete psychological break, because once Cortés had hold of him, he seems to have pulled a complete 180 switch and become essentially willingly Cortés’s puppet.
也许他一生中第一次被告知要做什么只会导致心理彻底崩溃，因为一旦科尔特斯抓住了他，他似乎就来了一个180度的转变，基本上心甘情愿地成为了科尔特斯的傀儡。
He was always trying to do what Cortés wanted in a way that would still be beneficial for his people, but would not rock the boat so much in terms of Cortés’s authority.
他总是试图以一种仍然对他的人民有利的方式做科尔特斯想要的事情，但不会对科尔特斯的权威造成太大的影响。
In the end, it wasn’t Cortés who disposed of him.
最终，不是科尔特斯处置了他。
It was his own people, because they realized that he had sold them out and he had to go.
这是他自己的人，因为他们意识到他已经出卖了他们，他必须离开。
His being unilaterally deposed had never happened before in Aztec history.
他被单方面废黜在阿兹特克历史上从未发生过。
He was the first huey tlatoani to be repudiated by his own people and replaced by someone else.
他是第一个被自己的人民否定并被其他人取代的休伊特拉托尼人。
Dwarkesh Patel But what explains Atahualpa?
德瓦克什·帕特尔 (Dwarkesh Patel) 但如何解释阿塔瓦尔帕呢？
What did he think was going to happen?
他认为会发生什么？
He seemed like he had his wits about him.
他似乎很有智慧。
Si Sheppard He did, and the Spanish accounts refer to it.
谢泼德 他做到了，西班牙的记载也提到了这一点。
He had a regal bearing and was clearly intelligent.
他有一种帝王般的气度，而且显然很聪明。
He was adaptive to the situation.
他适应了这种情况。
He learned to speak Spanish very quickly.
他很快就学会了说西班牙语。
He learned to play cards and chess.
他学会了打牌和下棋。
He was, I think, trying to integrate himself as much as possible.
我认为，他正在努力尽可能地融入自己。
At the same time, he was also reaching out to his own people.
与此同时，他也在向自己的人民伸出援手。
He was waiting perhaps for his opportunity to fully mobilize them.
他也许正在等待充分动员他们的机会。
Perhaps he just felt he never quite got the opportunity to do that.
也许他只是觉得自己从来没有机会这样做。
Bear in mind the deal: he walked into that room and said, “I can fill it up this high with gold and silver,” and Pizarro promised he’d be released at that point.
请记住这笔交易：他走进那个房间并说：“我可以用黄金和白银填满它，”皮萨罗承诺届时他将被释放。
Perhaps he actually felt that this was a man of his word.
或许他真的觉得这是一个言出必行的人。
Pizarro in no case was, and had him garroted to death after getting what he wanted.
皮萨罗无论如何都不是，并在得到他想要的东西后将他绞死。
It may just be that he misinterpreted Pizarro as someone who was on the same level, that “kings don’t do this to other kings.” But he was dealing with a freebooting entrepreneurist pirate, essentially, not someone operating in good faith at all.
可能只是他将皮萨罗误解为处于同一水平的人，“国王不会这样对待其他国王”。但他面对的是一个不劳而获的企业家海盗，本质上根本不是一个善意经营的人。
Dwarkesh Patel Zooming out, it’s interesting to think about what this Spanish New World conquest really accomplished.
德瓦克什·帕特尔 (Dwarkesh Patel) 缩小视野，思考西班牙征服新世界真正取得的成就是很有趣的。
They’re basically after gold and silver.
他们基本上追求的是黄金和白银。
In a weird way, they’re like paperclippers who don’t really care about this indigenous culture or even the productive capacity of this new continent.
奇怪的是，他们就像回形针一样，并不真正关心这种土著文化，甚至不关心这片新大陆的生产力。
They just care about these metals, which are not in and of themselves productive assets.
他们只关心这些金属，它们本身并不是生产性资产。
They can’t generate wealth.
他们无法创造财富。
They’re basically like crypto, if you think about what gold and silver are.
如果你想想黄金和白银是什么，它们基本上就像加密货币一样。
They’re just obsessed with this.
他们只是沉迷于这个。
Initially — we were talking about this yesterday — this helps them fund…
最初——我们昨天讨论过这一点——这有助于他们筹集资金……
Europe’s in a tough spot at this time because of the Ottomans and other forces.
由于奥斯曼帝国和其他势力的影响，欧洲目前处境艰难。
The Reconquista has just happened, so the Spanish have been fighting off Arab armies that had control over parts of the Iberian Peninsula.
收复失地运动刚刚发生，因此西班牙人一直在与控制伊比利亚半岛部分地区的阿拉伯军队作战。
They use this gold and this silver to help pay for those defenses back at home.
他们用这些黄金和白银来帮助支付国内的防御费用。
But if you think about what’s really happening here, there’s no new net wealth that has been generated.
但如果你想想这里到底发生了什么，就会发现并没有产生新的净财富。
It’s just redistribution among Europeans.
这只是欧洲人之间的重新分配。
If they’re using bullion as currency, now the relative ratio of bullion has changed.
如果他们使用金条作为货币，那么现在金条的相对比率已经发生了变化。
You get inflation plus some redistribution.
你会得到通货膨胀加上一些再分配。
It’s basically the government printing more money.
基本上是政府印了更多的钱。
That doesn’t create more stuff.
这不会创造更多的东西。
At least initially, the Spanish are not getting any new productive capacity out of the New World.
至少在最初阶段，西班牙人没有从新大陆获得任何新的生产能力。
What does change is that during this period, the Ming dynasty is in charge of China, and it has really messed up the circulation of paper currency .
变化的是，这个时期，明朝执掌中国，确实把纸币的流通搞乱了。
Nobody trusts it.
没有人相信它。
Every time there’s inflation, they just make up a new currency, and people’s stocks of wealth are totally worthless.
每次通货膨胀，他们就制造一种新货币，人们的财富存量就完全不值钱了。
Now the Spanish set up the silver mines in the New World, and they ship that silver off to China .
现在西班牙人在新大陆建立了银矿，然后将白银运往中国。
China is then sending millions of pieces of porcelain and tons and tons of silk and spices and fine goods to Europe — hundreds of tons of real goods, it might’ve been thousands of tons — in exchange for a medium of exchange, to make up for the fact that they don’t have a reliable means of exchange at the time in the Ming dynasty.
然后，中国向欧洲输送数百万件瓷器、成吨的丝绸、香料和精美商品——数百吨，可能是数千吨——以换取交换媒介，以弥补他们在明朝时期没有可靠的交换手段的事实。
That is an important, interesting piece of what the function of the Spanish colonies in the New World is.
这是西班牙殖民地在新大陆的功能的一个重要且有趣的部分。
It’s not generating any net new wealth.
它不会产生任何净新财富。
In the grand scheme of things, it’s basically helping get Chinese stuff for free, in some sense.
从长远来看，从某种意义上来说，它基本上是在帮助免费获得中国的东西。
Si Sheppard The conquistadors really didn’t appreciate what they’d accomplished, many of them.
Si Sheppard 征服者中的许多人并没有真正欣赏他们所取得的成就。
Some of them died doing what they did.
他们中的一些人在他们所做的事情中死去。
The ones who were lucky or good lived long enough to settle down on what were called encomiendas , local estates with many of the local peoples to farm the land for them, a kind of peon serfdom.
那些幸运或善良的人活得足够长，可以在所谓的“encomiendas”上定居下来，即当地的庄园，许多当地人为他们耕种土地，这是一种劳工农奴制。
The later iteration was the bureaucrats.
后来的迭代是官僚。
Once the conquistadors had cleared the ground, the bureaucrats would arrive from Spain, and they would begin running and administering what would become Mexico, Peru, South America generally.
一旦征服者清理了土地，官僚就会从西班牙抵达，他们将开始运行和管理后来的墨西哥、秘鲁和南美洲。
The conquistadors in South America rebelled against that and had to be put down by force to retain South America within the Spanish Empire.
南美洲的征服者对此进行了反抗，并不得不以武力镇压，以将南美洲保留在西班牙帝国的统治之下。
Once that was accomplished, though, the whole process became very integrated into the Spanish imperial orbit, the first empire on which the sun never set .
然而，一旦完成，整个过程就非常融入了西班牙帝国的轨道，这是第一个日不落帝国。
Once the Spanish had discovered and exploited a mountain of silver at Potosí in what’s now Bolivia, they put the last piece of the puzzle in place for true globalization.
一旦西班牙人在波托西（即现在的玻利维亚）发现并开采了一座银山，他们就为真正的全球化解决了最后一块难题。
Initially, the gold and silver was all going east, as you say, into the coffers of King Charles V, and then his son, King Philip II , for their wars of evangelical defense and expansion against the Ottomans, to keep the Netherlands under their control , and ideally, through the Armada , to bring the one true apostolic faith of Catholicism back to England.
最初，正如你所说，金银全部流向东方，进入查理五世国王和他的儿子菲利普二世国王的金库，用于他们针对奥斯曼帝国的福音派防御和扩张战争，以保持荷兰在他们的控制之下，理想情况下，通过无敌舰队，将天主教的唯一真正的使徒信仰带回英国。
Most of those ventures, of course, were failures.
当然，大多数这些冒险都失败了。
As you say, the net impact for Spain was ultimately quite negative.
正如你所说，这对西班牙的净影响最终是相当负面的。
By infusing Europe with this enormous expansion of liquidity through the silver that was pouring off the treasure ships arriving in Spain every year, all they were doing was importing inflation , pushing prices up.
通过每年从抵达西班牙的宝船涌出的白银，向欧洲注入流动性的巨大扩张，他们所做的只是输入通货膨胀，推高价格。
Real wages in Spain actually fell during this period because, yes, there was excess liquidity, but this meant prices for even staple goods were much higher than they had been previously.
西班牙的实际工资实际上在此期间下降了，因为流动性过剩，但这意味着即使是主要商品的价格也比以前高得多。
The ultimate negative effect was that the seductive drug, essentially, of having silver on tap meant that Spain never developed towards what we call functional capitalism.
最终的负面影响是，从本质上讲，拥有现成白银的诱人毒品意味着西班牙从未向我们所谓的功能资本主义发展。
It never developed capital markets or independent banking systems the way they were emerging in places like the Netherlands and England during this period.
它从未像这一时期荷兰和英国等地那样发展资本市场或独立银行体系。
Those powers moved ahead while Spain and Portugal were left behind, didn’t really fully industrialize during the 19th century, and were left very rural and poor and backward by the 20th century.
这些强国不断前进，而西班牙和葡萄牙却被抛在了后面，它们在 19 世纪并未真正实现工业化，到 20 世纪又陷入了农村、贫困和落后。
Still now they’re catching up from that.
现在他们仍在迎头赶上。
So the average Spanish gain from this was quite marginal.
因此，西班牙人从中获得的平均收益是微乎其微的。
“Yes, we can afford the fleets necessary to face off against the Ottomans at Lepanto in 1571,” which is good.
“是的，我们有能力拥有 1571 年在勒班陀对抗奥斯曼帝国所需的舰队，”这很好。
But in terms of the development of the society, that really plateaued and stayed that way for hundreds of years.
但就社会的发展而言，这种情况确实停滞了数百年。
The other side of the equation, as you mentioned, is China.
正如你提到的，等式的另一边是中国。
Once the Spanish had fully become able to exploit the silver mines of South America, they could then take advantage of their developing knowledge of the Pacific Ocean’s wind currents to send those great ships west to the Philippines, to Manila , their base in the Orient.
一旦西班牙人完全能够开采南美洲的银矿，他们就可以利用他们对太平洋风流的不断发展的了解，将这些大型船只向西运送到菲律宾，到达他们在东方的基地马尼拉。
From there they met with merchants coming from Japan, from Siam , and most of all from China, bringing goods with real practical value in exchange for that extracted silver.
从那里，他们会见了来自日本、暹罗，尤其是中国的商人，他们带来了具有真正实用价值的商品，以换取提取的白银。
As you say, the Spanish are buying goods with value using excess liquidity, and the real benefit from that is not something that’s structurally to the advantage of the country as a whole.
正如你所说，西班牙人正在利用过剩的流动性购买有价值的商品，而从中获得的真正好处并不是结构性的对整个国家有利的东西。
What the conquistadors did was historically put the last pieces of the puzzle in place for true globalization.
从历史上看，征服者所做的就是为真正的全球化拼上最后一块拼图。
Trade is no longer trans-Eurasian or even trans-Atlantic.
贸易不再是跨欧亚甚至跨大西洋的。
It’s trans-global.
这是跨全球的。
The networks now affect everybody at some point along the line.
现在，网络在某个时刻影响着每个人。
The Ming found that out in the mid-1640s when there was a cash crisis , having fully transferred the basis of exchange in their empire to silver.
明朝在 1640 年代中期发现了这一点，当时出现了现金危机，并将其帝国的交换基础完全转移为白银。
When access to silver was cut off, or at least minimized, for a number of reasons during the first half of the 17th century, the Ming — at the worst possible time, with the Manchu at the gates — could no longer fund their armies.
17 世纪上半叶，由于多种原因，白银的获取被切断，或者至少被减少到最低程度，明朝——在最糟糕的时期，满洲已在门口——无法再为他们的军队提供资金。
They couldn’t pay to put a military in place to hold them off.
他们无法花钱派军队来阻止他们。
So the Manchus moved in at a moment of supreme advantage, blew out the Ming, and replaced them as the new hegemons over the Chinese imperial zone.
因此，满族在占据绝对优势的时刻介入，消灭了明朝，并取代他们成为中国帝国地区的新霸主。
Dwarkesh Patel It’s interesting to contrast the Spanish, who had immediate and outrageous successes in the New World, with the English around the same time, who were setting up the colony in Virginia .
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）将在新大陆取得立竿见影的成功的西班牙人和大约同时期在弗吉尼亚建立殖民地的英国人进行对比是很有趣的。
There are so many letters from that time where people are complaining about the Virginia Company as literally a waste of English money and lives.
当时有很多信件，人们抱怨弗吉尼亚公司简直是浪费英国人的金钱和生命。
“Everybody’s dying.
“每个人都会死。
There’s nothing to farm here.
这里没有什么可耕种的。
There’s nothing to get out of this.” In the long run, of course, the British did lose control of the New World, but for a while they did gain these productive new colonies there.
没有什么可以从中得到的。”当然，从长远来看，英国人确实失去了对新世界的控制，但有一段时间他们确实在那里获得了这些富有成效的新殖民地。
I don’t know the right way to think about this.
我不知道思考这个问题的正确方法。
There is this way of thinking about it: maybe because the Spanish had this very quick initial success, they set up a very extractive settlement, which didn’t result in net productive capacity in the long run.
有这样的思考方式：也许是因为西班牙人很快就取得了初步成功，他们建立了一个非常榨取的定居点，从长远来看，这并没有带来净生产能力。
Whereas the British, because there was no crazy bullion floating around, were forced to build up some productive capacity, to build up the kinds of institutions that would allow them to make the most use of America, Canada, and so on.
而英国人，由于没有疯狂的金条流通，被迫建立一些生产能力，建立各种制度，使他们能够充分利用美国、加拿大等国家的优势。
Si Sheppard You look at the Netherlands and England, the two latecomers to the game of imperialism, Protestant powers marginalized for that reason in Europe.
谢泼德 你看看荷兰和英国，这两个帝国主义游戏的后来者，新教势力因此在欧洲被边缘化。
The Netherlands especially has nothing.
荷兰尤其什么都没有。
Natural resources, absolutely zero.
自然资源，绝对为零。
In that environment, you’re forced to innovate and think about how you can achieve capital gain and true economic expansion.
在这种环境下，您被迫创新并思考如何实现资本收益和真正的经济扩张。
Everybody wants the quick fix, understandably.
每个人都希望快速解决问题，这是可以理解的。
We play the lottery for that exact reason.
我们玩彩票正是出于这个原因。
But be careful what you wish for, because you may just actually get it.
但要小心你的愿望，因为你可能真的会得到它。
Those societies that have arrived at the quick fix, whether that’s gold or silver or monocultural crop production of some kind which gives you a monopoly on its provision, become satisfied with that.
那些已经找到了快速解决办法的社会，无论是黄金、白银还是某种单一作物生产，让你能够垄断其供应，都会对此感到满意。
They become trapped within an environment that exists solely for that purpose, and they don’t develop beyond the essential thresholds that that allows for.
他们被困在一个专门为此目的而存在的环境中，并且他们的发展不会超出所允许的基本阈值。
Even here in the US, we can look at the difference between the North and the South, that geographic line.
即使在美国，我们也可以看到南北之间的差异，即地理界限。
Below that line, yes, you can get the quick fix.
在此线之下，是的，您可以获得快速修复。
You can put all your capital into buying slaves and have them work at providing cash crops: tobacco, the original one, indigo and sugar, and of course the big one, cotton.
你可以把所有的资本都用来购买奴隶，让他们从事提供经济作物的工作：烟草、原始作物、靛蓝和糖，当然还有最大的作物——棉花。
The North didn’t have those advantages.
北方没有这些优势。
You couldn’t just buy land and then extract the resource from it.
你不能只购买土地然后从中提取资源。
You had to think about how to make money.
你必须考虑如何赚钱。
That’s why all the investment money in the North was going into things with long-term productivity: into trade and commerce, into advanced capital markets and the banking system, and of course into industrialization.
这就是为什么北方的所有投资资金都投入到具有长期生产力的领域：贸易和商业，先进的资本市场和银行体系，当然还有工业化。
That all happened in the North.
这一切都发生在北方。
When the rupture came in the 1860s and the North and South went to war, all those advantages were with the North.
当 1860 年代关系破裂、南北战争爆发时，所有这些优势都属于北方。
It wasn’t just population, but the industrial base, the capital markets necessary for it to put in place a winning long-term strategy for actually defeating the South in that conflict.
这不仅仅是人口，还有工业基础和资本市场，这是它制定制胜长期战略、在这场冲突中真正击败南方所必需的。
That again is the long-term lesson: having life too easy from the beginning leads to a certain…
这又是一个长期的教训：从一开始就过得太轻松的生活会导致某种......
I don’t want to call it laziness, but lack of vision, perhaps, about alternatives that may, in the longer term, actually be more advantageous.
我不想称其为懒惰，但也许缺乏远见，无法找到从长远来看实际上更有利的替代方案。
Dwarkesh Patel Going back to the Aztecs and Incas, one thing that’s remarkable here is just how bad their strategy and tactics often were.
德瓦克什·帕特尔 回到阿兹特克人和印加人，值得注意的一件事是他们的战略和战术常常是多么糟糕。
For example, because Aztec military conflict was based around capturing victims for sacrifice, there are many cases where Cortés himself was lying on the ground, having been knocked off his horse, but instead of just killing him on the ground and pressing their advantage, the Aztecs were trying to seize him to go have him sacrificed later.
例如，由于阿兹特克人的军事冲突是以俘虏牺牲品为基础的，所以在很多情况下，科尔特斯本人被打倒在地，但阿兹特克人并没有直接把他当场杀死并占据优势，而是试图抓住他，然后让他牺牲。
This allowed him to get himself out of thorny situations.
这让他摆脱了困境。
Another huge mistake that would happen in these conflicts is that, in the traditional way in which these military conflicts would happen, the general would be garnished and plumed with all this extra decoration, which would make him easy to identify on a battlefield.
在这些冲突中会发生的另一个巨大错误是，按照这些军事冲突发生的传统方式，将军会被装饰上所有这些额外的装饰，这将使他在战场上很容易被识别。
If you have cavalry that can just see, “Here’s where the general is.
如果你有能看见的骑兵，“这里就是将军所在的地方。
Let’s go directly to him and kill him,” the whole enemy force will rout.
我们直奔他而去，杀了他。”敌军全军溃散。
It breaks your entire chain of command.
它破坏了你的整个指挥链。
You might have 100,000 troops, but then your general dies and everybody else routs.
你可能有10万军队，但随后你的将军死了，其他人都溃败了。
Another example is the Battle of Cuzco : a couple hundred Spaniards defending against this huge rebellion.
另一个例子是库斯科战役：数百名西班牙人抵御这场巨大的叛乱。
If the rebellion had just kept attacking at night instead of only attacking during the day, the Spaniards would have never gotten a chance to rest and would have been depleted pretty quickly.
如果叛军继续在夜间进攻而不是只在白天进攻，西班牙人将永远没有休息的机会，很快就会被耗尽。
Instead, they would let them rest at night.
相反，他们会让他们晚上休息。
They wouldn’t use their overwhelming numbers to do rotations and attack at different times.
他们不会用压倒性的人数在不同的时间进行轮换和进攻。
Why I find this confusing is that it’s not like the conquistadors arrived at the doorsteps of a bunch of peace-loving hippies who didn’t know anything about war.
为什么我觉得这很令人困惑，因为征服者并不是来到一群对战争一无所知、爱好和平的嬉皮士的家门口。
Aztec society and Inca society were organized around warfare.
阿兹特克社会和印加社会是围绕战争组织起来的。
All adult males were trained to be warriors.
所有成年男性都被训练成为战士。
It was basically the Sparta of the New World.
它基本上是新世界的斯巴达。
How do we understand how a very military-focused culture did not have the strategic wherewithal to do this improvisation?
我们如何理解一个非常注重军事的文化为何没有战略资金来进行这种即兴创作？
Cortés was doing improvisation.
科尔特斯正在即兴创作。
Pizarro was doing a bunch of improvisation.
皮萨罗做了很多即兴创作。
Why weren’t they able to do the same thing?
为什么他们不能做同样的事情？
Si Sheppard There are a lot of factors, one of which is that cultural and religious aspect to it.
Si Sheppard：有很多因素，其中之一就是文化和宗教方面。
Warfare was rewarded by an increase in status.
战争的回报是地位的提高。
Warriors would be recognized for bringing captives back to Tenochtitlan for sacrifice.
战士们因将俘虏带回特诺奇蒂特兰进行牺牲而受到表彰。
There was even a hierarchy in terms of the prisoners: four Totonacs were worth one Chichimec , because the Chichimec were a wilder tribe to the north and fought more fiercely than the Totonacs did.
囚犯之间甚至存在等级制度：四个托托纳克人相当于一个奇奇梅克人，因为奇奇梅克人是北方的一个更狂野的部落，比托托纳克人战斗更激烈。
To a degree, there’s a certain overlap with European cultures.
在某种程度上，与欧洲文化有一定的重叠。
There was great advantage throughout the feudal era in taking your enemies alive as opposed to killing them, because then you could ransom them back to their families.
在整个封建时代，活捉敌人比杀死他们有很大的优势，因为这样你就可以将他们赎回给他们的家人。
You could come out of that ahead in terms of at least financial gain.
你至少可以在经济收益方面提前摆脱困境。
In a way, the Aztec model makes more sense, because sacrificing your enemy means you’ll never see him again, whereas selling your enemy back to his family means he’s up for round two.
在某种程度上，阿兹特克模型更有意义，因为牺牲你的敌人意味着你再也见不到他，而将你的敌人卖回给他的家人意味着他可以进入第二轮。
You might face off against the same guy across a future battlefield.
你们可能会在未来的战场上面对同一个人。
Even kings…
就连国王……
The kings of France after the Battles of Poitiers and Pavia were captured and then subject to various indignities.
普瓦捷和帕维亚战役后，法国国王被俘，并遭受各种侮辱。
To a degree, there was a certain level of overlap.
在某种程度上，存在一定程度的重叠。
More holistically, you’re right.
更全面地说，你是对的。
Yes, the Aztecs did fight ideally to capture, not to kill.
是的，阿兹特克人确实是为了夺取而不是为了杀戮而进行理想的战斗。
There were multiple episodes when they did have Cortés himself under their knives, but they were so desperate to haul him off that his compatriots, sometimes sacrificing themselves, were able to rescue him.
在很多次事件中，他们确实用刀刺伤了科尔特斯，但他们非常渴望把他拉走，以至于他的同胞有时甚至牺牲了自己，才得以营救他。
That was an aspect of their warfare ingrained in their culture, in their faith, in the religious expression of the values of an entire people.
这是他们战争的一个方面，植根于他们的文化、他们的信仰、整个民族价值观的宗教表达中。
It’s difficult to tilt that within the framework that we’re talking about.
在我们正在讨论的框架内很难倾斜这一点。
It’d be like asking people here, if we’re fighting aliens from another planet, to give up Christianity because there’s too much invested in terms of its morality, and more effective combat skills would be derived from following some other faith.
这就像要求这里的人们，如果我们正在与来自另一个星球的外星人作战，放弃基督教，因为基督教在道德方面投入太多，而更有效的战斗技能将来自于追随其他信仰。
It was not possible to reorient an entire society in that limited timeframe.
在有限的时间内不可能重新定位整个社会。
The Cuzco situation…
库斯科局势...
To use a famous film example, the movie 300 .
借用一个著名的电影例子，电影300。
The Spartans are able to hold the pass at Thermopylae against overwhelming numbers because it’s very, very narrow.
斯巴达人能够在人数众多的情况下守住温泉关的通道，因为通道非常非常狭窄。
Within Cuzco, the surviving conquistadors fell back to two heavily fortified buildings with narrow entrances.
在库斯科境内，幸存的征服者撤退到两座入口狭窄的戒备森严的建筑内。
The streets of Cuzco are quite narrow as well, which means that even those overwhelming numbers could only be channeled down through those narrow avenues.
库斯科的街道也很狭窄，这意味着即使是大量的人也只能通过这些狭窄的街道。
Those could be blocked relatively effectively, even by the small numbers of conquistadors and their increasing numbers of native allies, who with their metal armor were able to put in place blocking operations that could hold those kinds of frameworks.
即使是少数征服者和他们越来越多的本土盟友，他们也可以相对有效地封锁这些设施，他们凭借金属装甲能够实施可以容纳此类框架的封锁行动。
Beyond that, when the pressure came off, they would unleash their horses, largely through the wider plazas and then the surrounding countryside, looking for isolated detachments to take out.
除此之外，当压力减轻时，他们会释放他们的马匹，主要穿过更广阔的广场，然后是周围的乡村，寻找孤立的分队来消灭。
This effect was demoralizing on the Inca.
这种影响使印加人士气低落。
They initially had the advantage.
他们一开始就有优势。
They were rallied by Manco: “We’re going to deal with these barbarians once and for all.” As the frustration of the siege drags on, there are more and more defections, men slipping away at night either to switch sides or just go back to their homes and families.
曼科将他们召集起来：“我们将一劳永逸地对付这些野蛮人。”随着围困的挫败感持续下去，越来越多的人叛逃，人们在夜间溜走，要么改变立场，要么只是回到自己的家园和家人身边。
Again, this army is huge and very diverse, and many of those recruits are peoples who’ve been subjugated and have no institutional loyalty to the Inca.
同样，这支军队规模庞大且非常多样化，其中许多新兵都是被征服的民族，对印加没有制度上的忠诚。
The bottom line is they need to get home to their farms to get the harvest in before the winter.
最重要的是，他们需要在冬天之前回到农场才能收获。
The nature of warfare in pre-Columbian America, and in Europe for much of its history, was driven by the annual cycle of planting and harvesting the crops.
前哥伦布时期的美洲以及欧洲历史上的大部分战争的性质都是由每年种植和收获农作物的周期驱动的。
You need the men on their farms to do that, because if they’re not there, you face a very hard year coming up if you don’t have enough crops set aside to get you through the winter and the following year.
你需要农场里的男人来做这件事，因为如果他们不在那里，如果你没有足够的农作物来度过冬天和下一年，你将面临非常艰难的一年。
For all those reasons, the Inca, yes, with those huge numbers, weren’t able to really overwhelmingly apply them at the same time.
由于所有这些原因，印加人，是的，拥有如此巨大的数量，无法同时真正压倒性地应用它们。
If they’d caught perhaps the entire conquistador army marching through one of those mountain passes, yes, they may have been able to win a set-piece battle in that environment.
如果他们发现整支征服者军队正在穿过其中一个山口，是的，他们可能能够在那种环境下赢得一场定胜仗。
The horses can’t charge up the steep slopes.
马匹无法冲上陡峭的斜坡。
Both ends, if they’re blocked cleverly with boulders and with trees, mean the infantry’s not going anywhere either.
如果两端都被巨石和树木巧妙地挡住，就意味着步兵也哪儿也去不了。
You have them essentially pinned down.
你基本上已经把它们固定住了。
All the advantages would’ve been useless at that point.
到那时，所有的优势都将毫无用处。
Metal armor won’t protect you from a two-ton boulder rumbling from the heights right into your face.
金属盔甲无法保护你免受从高处隆隆滚到你脸上的两吨巨石的伤害。
On small scales they were able to arrange that.
在小范围内，他们能够做到这一点。
But to get the entire conquistador force in one place at one time like that never happened.
但像这样将整个征服者军队同时集中在一处的情况从未发生过。
Dwarkesh Patel So there was basically not enough time to accumulate the strategy?
Dwarkesh Patel 那么基本上没有足够的时间来积累策略？
Si Sheppard Again, it’s that shockingly short, steep learning curve.
Si Sheppard 再说一遍，这是令人震惊的短而陡的学习曲线。
There just wasn’t enough time, no.
只是时间不够，不。
Dwarkesh Patel In retrospect, you have these outrageous battles with thousands of deaths on one side and zero deaths on the other side.
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）回想起来，你会经历这些令人发指的战斗，一方死亡数千人，另一方死亡为零。
My understanding is this came as a surprise to the conquistadors as well.
我的理解是，这对征服者来说也是一个惊喜。
How were some hundred-odd men willing to go confront an empire of 10 million people and say, “Your job is to take this over”?
几百个男人怎么会愿意去面对一个拥有一千万人口的帝国并说“你的工作就是接管这个”？
It’d be like dropping 100 Marines into 18th-century England and saying, “Okay, you better come out the other end with control over Parliament.” How is this a thing that they were willing to do?
这就像将 100 名海军陆战队员空投到 18 世纪的英格兰，然后说：“好吧，你最好从另一端出来，控制议会。”这是他们怎么愿意做的事情？
Si Sheppard The classic push-pull factors.
Si Sheppard 经典的推拉因素。
They came from a proud land, a new country.
他们来自一块值得骄傲的土地，一个新的国家。
Spain had only come together in 1492 , and they were aware their history was one of struggle, uniting the peninsula and consummating the Reconquista.
西班牙直到 1492 年才走到一起，他们意识到自己的历史是一部奋斗史，即统一半岛和完成收复失地运动。
They had a proud warrior background, but little to show for it, really.
他们有令人自豪的战士背景，但实际上并没有什么可展示的。
Again, the quality of life, particularly in Extremadura , which is the province in Spain where so many of these conquistadors originated from, was a land of hardship.
同样，生活质量也很艰苦，特别是在西班牙的埃斯特雷马杜拉省，这里是许多征服者的发源地。
It was small farms and dusty, unproductive terrain.
那是一些小农场，尘土飞扬，土地贫瘠。
They were aware of a wider world around them.
他们意识到周围有更广阔的世界。
Like so many men throughout history, they see their only path forward to being anything more than dirt farmers as seeking a career of high risk and potentially even fatal outcomes, but with possible great reward as well.
就像历史上的许多人一样，他们认为自己除了成为土农之外的唯一道路就是寻求一种高风险、甚至可能致命的职业，但也可能获得巨大的回报。
Men have joined armies and militaries and fought in campaigns, not even their own, even other peoples’, for many centuries, millennia now, for that reason.
出于这个原因，人们加入军队并参加战役，甚至不是他们自己的，甚至是其他民族的，几个世纪以来，几千年了。
Then there’s the attraction of the New World.
还有新世界的吸引力。
Once they’re aware that out there is a whole new land where “it’s possible for even a small man like myself to become something, to become somebody.
一旦他们意识到外面有一片全新的土地，“即使像我这样的小人物也有可能成为某物，成为某人。
All I have as an asset is my fighting skills.
我所拥有的唯一资产就是我的战斗技巧。
Yeah, I could keep fighting in the campaigns against the Moors or against the Turks, but those are high-risk, low-return ventures.
是的，我可以继续参加针对摩尔人或土耳其人的战役，但这些都是高风险、低回报的冒险。
I’ll be fighting in my home waters, but what will the potential rewards be?
我将在我的家乡水域战斗，但潜在的回报是什么？
These Turks can fight.
这些土耳其人可以战斗。
The message I’m getting from the far side of the Atlantic is that the risks there are much lower and the potential rewards much higher.
我从大西洋彼岸得到的信息是，那里的风险要低得多，而潜在的回报要高得多。
It means traveling across a vast ocean.
意思是跨越浩瀚的海洋。
It means essentially being very self-reliant and falling in with men who are just as cutthroat as I am.”
这本质上意味着要非常自力更生，并与像我一样残酷的男人交往。”
Dwarkesh Patel How important is religion in the morale of these soldiers?
德瓦克什·帕特尔 (Dwarkesh Patel) 宗教对于这些士兵的士气有多重要？
In retrospect we say, “Okay, they were able to take on huge armies.” But they didn’t even know that there was an empire there to take over.
回想起来，我们会说：“好吧，他们能够对抗庞大的军队。”但他们甚至不知道那里有一个帝国可以接管。
They didn’t know where its capital was.
他们不知道它的首都在哪里。
They’d never seen it before.
他们以前从未见过它。
They knew nothing about what alliances they would need to maneuver, what size of armies they would need to face, what basic terrain and geography they would need to navigate.
他们不知道需要结成什么样的联盟，需要面对多少规模的军队，需要航行的基本地形和地理。
I’m still trying to understand how they gained the confidence — you and your couple hundred buddies — to go and take on a huge empire.
我仍在试图理解他们——你和你的几百个伙伴——是如何获得信心去挑战一个庞大的帝国的。
Did they just think God would make sure that they were okay?
他们只是认为上帝会确保他们没事吗？
How do we understand that?
我们如何理解这一点？
Si Sheppard Cortés and Pizarro both had men of the cloth traveling with their expeditions to provide for their spiritual needs.
谢泼德·科尔特斯（Si Sheppard Cortés）和皮萨罗（Pizarro）都派遣布衣男子随探险队旅行，以满足他们的精神需求。
Cortés and Pizarro, in retrospect, would make a great deal of this in their writing.
回想起来，科尔特斯和皮萨罗在他们的著作中对此做了很多阐述。
They professed to be outraged, particularly by the Aztec cult of human sacrifice, which was integral to their society.
他们声称感到愤怒，尤其是对阿兹特克人的活人祭祀崇拜，这是他们社会不可或缺的一部分。
I don’t see any reason why that would be untrue.
我看不出有什么理由说这是不真实的。
It would be shocking to actually see that happen.
如果真的看到这种情况发生，将会令人震惊。
When Moctezuma invited Cortés to the top of one of the two great pyramids in Tenochtitlan, he remarks that the priests were daubed from head to foot in black clay or body paint, and the interior was black with spilled blood and stank abominably.
当蒙特祖马邀请科尔特斯登上特诺奇蒂特兰两座大金字塔之一的顶部时，他评论道，祭司们从头到脚都涂满了黑色粘土或人体彩绘，内部一片漆黑，流淌着鲜血，散发着令人作呕的恶臭。
I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be genuinely mortified by that.
我看不出他们有什么理由不为此感到真正的羞辱。
They would take a certain degree of legitimacy from tearing down the ancient idols of these superstitious peoples and raising them up to the one true faith.
他们会通过拆除这些迷信民族的古老偶像并将其提升为单一的真正信仰来获得一定程度的合法性。
You can salve your conscience in many ways by doing that: “In real terms I’m here for what I can take, but I am performing the will of God, and therefore I have some absolution when I’m called to account at the end of the day.” Men will sometimes seek to find a higher purpose in what are very low endeavors, which is what was playing out at that time.
这样做可以在很多方面安慰你的良心：“实际上，我来这里是为了我能承受的，但我是在执行上帝的旨意，因此当我最终被要求承担责任时，我可以得到一些赦免。”人们有时会在非常低级的努力中寻求更高的目标，这就是当时的情况。
Again, coming to the motivation, the initial conquests were relatively easy.
再说一次，说到动机，最初的征服相对容易。
The island populations in the Caribbean — what we now call Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Cuba — were quite low on the tech tree , were not unified, and did not have a significant military presence.
加勒比海的岛屿人口——我们现在所说的波多黎各、伊斯帕尼奥拉岛、古巴——在科技树上的地位相当低，不统一，也没有重要的军事存在。
Of course, on islands there’s nowhere for them to run.
当然，在岛屿上他们无处可逃。
You could run into the mountains of Cuba, but eventually they would all be hunted down.
你可能会跑进古巴的山区，但最终他们都会被追捕。
The feeling was, “The pickings here are pretty easy.” The enthusiastic attitude was, “Well, why would it be any different on the mainland?”
感觉是，“这里的采摘很容易。”热情的态度是：“那么，为什么在大陆会有所不同呢？”
Of course, they did run up against heavy fighting, and some of them, veterans of wars against the Turks, would say afterwards, “This was some of the hardest fighting I’ve ever been through.” By that point they’d seen that the potential rewards were much higher as well.
当然，他们确实遇到了激烈的战斗，其中一些参加过与土耳其战争的老兵事后会说：“这是我经历过的最艰苦的战斗。”到那时，他们已经发现潜在的回报也高得多。
When they arrived at Lake Texcoco, they would marvel as if we had just arrived in Atlantis…
当他们到达特斯科科湖时，他们会惊叹我们好像刚刚到达亚特兰蒂斯……
to be in this place on this lake with these cities arranged around its edges, and the biggest city of all appearing to float on the water like Venice, except even more dramatic with its high temples.
在这个湖边的这个地方，这些城市排列在它的边缘，最大的城市似乎像威尼斯一样漂浮在水面上，除了它的高耸的寺庙更加引人注目。
To them, this both awed them and inflamed that greed that they had.
对他们来说，这既让他们敬畏，又点燃了他们的贪婪。
Cortés himself admitted as much to Moctezuma’s envoys.
科尔特斯本人也向蒙特祖马的特使承认了这一点。
He said, “My men and I suffer from a disease of the heart that only gold can cure.” So Moctezuma sent him feathered headdresses and all the traditional regalia.
他说：“我和我的手下都患有一种只有黄金才能治愈的心病。”因此蒙特祖玛送给他羽毛头饰和所有传统服饰。
He sent him jade and obsidian, which in the Aztec world would have been symbols of great regard.
他送给他翡翠和黑曜石，这在阿兹特克世界中是受人尊敬的象征。
Cortés was happy to put on the headdress, and he sent it back to the king.
科尔特斯很高兴戴上头饰，并将其送回给国王。
But the little trinkets of gold that he was getting, that was the real end purpose.
但他得到的小金饰才是真正的最终目的。
The local peoples would talk about how the Spanish were chattering like monkeys as they were picking up this gold, fascinated by it.
当地人会谈论西班牙人如何像猴子一样喋喋不休地捡起这些黄金，并被它迷住了。
Dwarkesh Patel By the way, Bernal Díaz , who was on Cortés’s expedition and wrote a firsthand account of what happened afterwards, says in his account that in every single town they come across, even small outlying villages of the empire, every temple, every city has tons of human sacrifice remains left over.
德瓦克什·帕特尔顺便说一句，参加科尔特斯探险队并写下了后来发生的事情的第一手资料的伯纳尔·迪亚斯在他的记录中说，在他们遇到的每一个城镇，甚至是帝国的边远小村庄，每座寺庙，每座城市都留下了成吨的活人祭品。
This is an endemic part of the society that I guess must have horrified the Spanish.
我想这是这个社会的一个普遍现象，一定让西班牙人感到恐惧。
But it’s hard to square any sort of humanitarian, even plausible motivation to the Spanish.
但很难将任何形式的人道主义动机，甚至是看似合理的动机与西班牙人联系起来。
They were just very willing…
他们只是非常愿意……
I think maybe even worse than almost any other European conquest ever.
我认为这可能比几乎任何其他欧洲征服还要糟糕。
The Spanish in the New World just massacre huge swaths of innocent women and children.
新世界的西班牙人屠杀了大量无辜的妇女和儿童。
Literal genocides, intentional genocides, not just disease.
字面上的种族灭绝，故意的种族灭绝，而不仅仅是疾病。
Crazy amounts of rape and assault.
疯狂数量的强奸和袭击。
There wasn’t a sense of, “We’re freeing these people from the shackles of oppression,” or at least there’s no plausible story you could tell where that’s what you’re doing.
没有一种感觉，“我们正在将这些人从压迫的束缚中解放出来”，或者至少没有任何可信的故事可以告诉你这就是你正在做的事情。
Si Sheppard They would argue that in the long term it’s in these peoples’ interests.
斯·谢泼德 他们认为，从长远来看，这符合这些人民的利益。
But of course in the short term, as you say, the accounts are unambiguous about this…
但当然，正如你所说，从短期来看，账目对此是明确的……
throwing men and women to those huge hunting dogs that they brought with them for sport, to watch them being torn apart.
他们把男人和女人扔到他们带来的大型猎犬身上，看着他们被撕成碎片。
They could rationalize that in Mesoamerica in reference to that cult of sacrifice, which was endemic, ingrained into the mentalities of those people.
他们可以通过参考中美洲的牺牲崇拜来合理化这一点，这种崇拜是地方性的，根深蒂固地融入了人们的心态中。
There was a regular cycle of sacrifice, and that would peak according to particular crises, major campaigns, or the like.
牺牲有一个定期的循环，并且会根据特定的危机、重大战役等达到顶峰。
There are accounts — again, these are distorted accounts — of an almost industrial level of human sacrifice, that the parade of prisoners who’d been drugged to keep them pacified stretched from the pyramid complex all the way through to the causeways.
有一些报道——同样，这些都是歪曲的报道——几乎是工业水平的活人祭祀，被麻醉以保持平静的囚犯游行队伍从金字塔群一直延伸到堤道。
One after the other they’d be brought up to the top of the pyramids to the temple complex.
他们一个接一个地被带上金字塔顶端的寺庙建筑群。
Four priests, each would take an arm and a leg, while a fifth one would use an obsidian blade to open an incision and pull out the heart, which they’d offer to the gods.
四名牧师，每人拿走一条胳膊和一条腿，第五名牧师则用黑曜石刀片切开一个切口，取出心脏，将其献给众神。
I’ve been to those pyramids, the ones at Teotihuacan.
我去过那些金字塔，特奥蒂瓦坎的金字塔。
The steps leading up are very, very narrow.
通向上面的台阶非常非常狭窄。
You almost have to walk up sideways, deliberately so, because when the heart had been taken out and burned, the body would be tumbled off the far side, and the steps were so steep to allow it to tumble all the way to the bottom.
你几乎要侧着走，故意这样，因为当心脏被取出并烧毁时，尸体会从远处滚下来，而且台阶太陡了，让它一路滚到底部。
Then the warrior who’d taken that prisoner would take the flesh home to be consumed.
然后，俘虏该俘虏的战士会把肉带回家吃掉。
It was the consummation of his victory as a warrior to take home, literally internalize, the defeated enemy.
作为一名战士，他将被击败的敌人带回家，真正地内化，这是他胜利的完成。
This was, as you say, a cycle that the world is better off without.
正如你所说，这是一个循环，如果没有这个循环，世界会变得更好。
I’m not going to make any excuses for it.
我不会为此找任何借口。
But the motivations of those who did that were not selfless.
但这样做的人的动机并不是无私的。
It was at best a beneficial side effect, window dressing on a process of colonization and even literal genocide.
这充其量只是一种有益的副作用，是殖民化过程中的门面，甚至是字面上的种族灭绝。
It had even less validation in South America, because there was no such tradition at all.
它在南美洲的认可度更低，因为根本没有这样的传统。
The Inca would very occasionally take a virgin sacrifice into the high mountains where she’d be drugged, and you can still find the mummified corpses of these girls, but that was very rare and very specific.
印加人偶尔会把处女献祭到高山上，在那里她会被下药，你仍然可以找到这些女孩的木乃伊尸体，但这是非常罕见和非常具体的。
There was no ingrained culture of mass human sacrifice at all.
根本不存在根深蒂固的大规模活人祭祀文化。
Dwarkesh Patel Here’s a question I find very interesting.
Dwarkesh Patel 这是一个我觉得很有趣的问题。
Why is it that the Spaniards are able to weaponize the divisions between the different native forces to their own advantage, but the natives are not able to do the same with the Spaniards?
为什么西班牙人能够将不同土著势力之间的分歧武器化以达到自己的优势，而土著人却不能对西班牙人做同样的事情？
We know there were significant divisions among the Spaniards.
我们知道西班牙人之间存在重大分歧。
Literally, there’s a whole much larger force that is sent over to arrest Cortés.
从字面上看，有一支更大的部队被派去逮捕科尔特斯。
Similarly, we didn’t get into this much, but in Pizarro’s expedition, his second in command, Almagro , is pissed off that Pizarro is getting all the spoils.
同样，我们没有深入探讨这一点，但在皮萨罗的探险中，他的副手阿尔马格罗对皮萨罗获得了所有战利品感到愤怒。
He comes back, lays siege to Cuzco after Manco Inca has laid siege to Cuzco, and captures it.
在曼科印加围攻库斯科后，他回来围攻库斯科，并占领了它。
They were literally fighting, in multiple cases in both these expeditions.
他们确实在战斗，在这两次探险中多次发生战斗。
The Spanish are fighting each other while they’re taking over a much larger empire.
西班牙人一边互相争斗，一边接管一个更大的帝国。
Why is it that Manco Inca or Moctezuma are not able to use these divisions to their own advantage to stay in power?
为什么曼科·印加或蒙特祖玛不能利用这些分裂为自己谋取利益以维持权力？
Si Sheppard That’s a good question.
谢泼德 这是个好问题。
The critical difference is this is happening for the conquistadors within the Spanish orbit.
关键的区别在于，这种情况发生在西班牙轨道内的征服者身上。
They’re all Castilians , they’re all Spaniards.
他们都是卡斯蒂利亚人，他们都是西班牙人。
Shared common backgrounds for most of them, and their confrontations were personal rivalries within their system.
他们中的大多数人都有共同的背景，他们的对抗是他们系统内的个人竞争。
If confronted by an existential crisis, to pit them against each other, I think that would have failed.
如果面临生存危机，让他们互相对抗，我认为那是失败的。
Their bottom line was they would have united if they felt there was a common cause against them that would have forced them to do that.
他们的底线是，如果他们觉得有一个共同的理由反对他们，迫使他们这样做，他们就会团结起来。
Whereas for the local peoples, these are differences between entire societies, both the external and internal factors here.
而对于当地人来说，这是整个社会之间的差异，既有外部因素，也有内部因素。
Cuitláhuac, who succeeded his brother, Moctezuma II, as huey tlatoani after driving the Spaniards out during La Noche Triste, sent emissaries to the Tlaxcalans to build and expand their own new triple alliance, to come together as native people with a common interest against these outsiders.
崔特拉瓦克在悲伤之夜驱逐西班牙人后，继承了他的兄弟蒙特祖马二世，成为休伊·特拉托尼人。他派出使者前往特拉斯卡拉人，建立和扩大他们自己的新三国联盟，让拥有共同利益的土著人民团结起来反对这些外来者。
The Tlaxcalan younger generation thought about it.
特拉斯卡兰的年轻一代思考了这个问题。
But the old men who still retained power, who had been fighting against the Aztecs for decades and saw them as, in the end, the existential threat, repudiated this possibility.
但仍然保留权力的老人，几十年来一直与阿兹特克人作战，最终将他们视为生存威胁，否认了这种可能性。
The Tlaxcalans wanted nothing to do with the Aztecs.
特拉斯卡拉人不想与阿兹特克人有任何关系。
“No, we are enemies and always have been and always will be.
“不，我们是敌人，过去是，将来也永远是。
This is your problem, and maybe you’ll get taken out.
这是你的问题，也许你会被淘汰。
No loss to us.” They couldn’t overcome the kind of institutional hostilities which go way, way back through their history.
对我们来说没有损失。”他们无法克服历史上一直存在的制度性敌对行为。
The only way that the indigenous people could have played the same game — and to a degree this did happen later — was to play different European powers off against each other.
土著人民能够玩同样的游戏的唯一方法——在某种程度上，这种情况后来确实发生了——就是让不同的欧洲列强相互对抗。
But of course the problem for the Aztecs, for the Inca, was the Spanish were the only game in town.
但当然，对于阿兹特克人和印加人来说，问题是西班牙人是城里唯一的游戏。
They were the only outsiders they’d encountered.
他们是他们遇到的唯一的外人。
If the English, French, Dutch, even the Ottomans had been players in New World colonization at that very early stage, it may have been possible for local peoples to identify, “Okay, these are different cultures.
如果英国人、法国人、荷兰人，甚至奥斯曼人在很早的阶段就参与了新世界殖民活动，那么当地人可能会认识到，“好吧，这些是不同的文化。
We can play them off against each other to our advantage.” That may have been the game, but at that time, it wasn’t possible.
我们可以让他们互相竞争，以达到我们的优势。”也许这就是游戏，但在当时，这是不可能的。
Dwarkesh Patel I know you’ve spent a little bit of time thinking about what happened in all these other episodes of colonialism as well.
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）我知道你也花了一点时间思考所有其他殖民主义事件中发生的事情。
In India, for example, we do have many different European powers.
例如，在印度，我们确实有许多不同的欧洲势力。
Why was it not possible for the Mughals to play them off each other indefinitely to keep control over India?
为什么莫卧儿王朝不可能无限期地相互较量以保持对印度的控制？
Si Sheppard The Mughals peaked under Aurangzeb at the beginning of the 18th century.
Si Sheppard 莫卧儿王朝在奥朗则布统治下于 18 世纪初达到顶峰。
Subsequently, his successors didn’t have whatever you call it — the authority, the charisma, the rizz, however you want to define it — to maintain that hegemony which he’d established by almost taking over all of India.
随后，他的继任者没有任何你所说的东西——权威、魅力、活力，无论你想如何定义它——来维持他几乎占领整个印度而建立的霸权。
The Mughals always at root had the same problem that the Manchu did when they conquered the Ming in the 17th century and built Qing dynasty China to the greatest physical extent it ever had.
莫卧儿人从根本上一直面临着与满族在 17 世纪征服明朝并建立清朝中国至其历史上最大的领土时所面临的同样的问题。
They were always outsiders.
他们始终是局外人。
They were not indigenous to the population.
他们不是当地居民的土著。
In the background, there was always that vague resentment that “we’re being ruled here by foreigners.” That was okay while they were going from success to success.
在这背后，总有一种模糊的怨恨：“我们在这里被外国人统治了”。当他们从成功走向成功时，这没关系。
But when the momentum halts and it begins to roll backwards, that’s when the local power brokers begin to feel to themselves, “Maybe we have more to gain from breaking away from the empire than we do from remaining within it.” Both Mughal India and Manchu China had that kind of fatal defect, as it were, coded into the ultimate basis for their authority.
但当这种势头停止并开始倒退时，当地的权力掮客开始感到，“也许我们从脱离帝国中获得的收益比留在帝国中获得的收益更多。”莫卧儿印度和满族中国都有这种致命的缺陷，可以说，这是他们权威的最终基础。
So even without the Europeans, I think the Mughal Empire would have peaked and it would have disintegrated.
因此，即使没有欧洲人，我认为莫卧儿帝国也会达到顶峰，然后就会解体。
What would have happened next would be more like a patchwork quilt of different authorities, some larger, some smaller.
接下来发生的事情更像是不同当局拼凑而成的被子，有些更大，有些更小。
The Maratha Confederacy I think would have been a major player, but not one that could incorporate the entire subcontinent within its authority.
我认为马拉塔联盟会是一个主要参与者，但无法将整个次大陆纳入其管辖范围。
Of course, we look at Chinese history.
当然，我们看看中国的历史。
It’s the constant cycle of the rise of a dynasty, its peak, its decline into anarchy, and then the rise of a new imperial hegemon in the region.
这是一个王朝的崛起、巅峰、陷入无政府状态、然后该地区新帝国霸主崛起的不断循环。
That cycle would play out, I think, regardless of whether the Europeans intervened.
我认为，无论欧洲人是否干预，这个循环都会上演。
Specifically in terms of why the British took over at the end, in the bluntest terms, the Royal Navy rules the waves.
具体来说，就英国最终接管的原因而言，用最直白的话来说，皇家海军统治着波浪。
In terms of projecting power, the Brits were able to force the French out of Canada and out of India because they controlled the sea lanes.
在投射力量方面，英国人能够将法国人赶出加拿大和印度，因为他们控制了海上航线。
Although the French had, in terms of population and military, a larger force, if you can’t project that force, it’s really of no value to you.
尽管法国人在人口和军事方面拥有更大的力量，但如果你不能投射出这种力量，那对你来说真的没有任何价值。
Dwarkesh Patel This is very interesting, because it makes sense why the British could have been one of the major powers in India, where there’s the Marathas, there’s the remainders of the Mughal Empire, there’s many other factions, and then there’s this British outpost.
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）：这非常有趣，因为这解释了为什么英国可能成为印度的主要强国之一，那里有马拉塔人，有莫卧儿帝国的残余势力，还有许多其他派系，然后还有这个英国前哨基地。
They’ve gotten rid of the French, the British have got Bengal .
他们摆脱了法国人，英国人得到了孟加拉。
Why is it that they were able to consolidate where nobody else is able to consolidate?
为什么他们能够在其他人无法整合的地方进行整合？
One hypothesis here is that we often talk about advantages in technology, but we don’t talk about advantages in governance or in terms of organization.
这里的一个假设是，我们经常谈论技术方面的优势，但我们不谈论治理或组织方面的优势。
The East India Company was a company.
东印度公司是一家公司。
It had a board that could fire and hire CEOs and lieutenants and whatever.
它有一个董事会，可以解雇和雇用首席执行官和副手等等。
It wasn’t called a CEO, obviously.
显然，他不被称为首席执行官。
It wasn’t necessarily the most competent people who were in charge of the East India Trading Company, though they were pretty competent people, Robert Clive and his underlings.
掌管东印度贸易公司的不一定是最有能力的人，尽管罗伯特·克莱夫和他的下属都是相当有能力的人。
You would have instances…
你会有实例......
For example, I think the nawabs of Bengal right before the British are able to gain control of Bengal, which is the initial tax base that they set up in order to further their conquest.
例如，我认为孟加拉的纳瓦布就在英国人能够控制孟加拉之前，这是他们为了进一步征服而建立的最初税基。
Alivardi Khan is considered to be a pretty good ruler who was able to hold the British at bay.
阿里瓦尔迪汗被认为是一位非常优秀的统治者，能够阻止英国人。
Then he dies, and his grandson is this kind of crazy, psychopathic guy who doesn’t listen to advice and so forth.
然后他死了，他的孙子就是这种疯狂的、精神变态的人，不听建议等等。
Because there’s this monarchical tradition across all these principalities in India, there’s just going to be, sooner or later, a bad king, and that king will not be able to stop the British incursion.
因为印度所有这些公国都有这种君主制传统，所以迟早会出现一个坏国王，而那个国王将无法阻止英国的入侵。
There are also all these forces around these principalities where it’s, “Who are we going to lend money to?
这些公国周围也存在着所有这些力量，“我们要借钱给谁？
Who are we going to lend our troops to?” They realize there’s a bad king right now.
我们要把军队借给谁？”他们意识到现在有一个坏国王。
The British seem pretty competent.
英国人看起来很有能力。
“I’m going to make an alliance with the British instead.”
“我将与英国人结盟。”
Similarly with the case of the Aztecs and the Incas, and maybe even more so, the overwhelming majority of the troops, the forces that the British are using are Indians, sepoys .
与阿兹特克人和印加人的情况类似，甚至可能更是如此，英国人使用的绝大多数军队都是印度人，印度土兵。
This is an underrated thing, being able to delegate to competent people and then being able to replace them one after another if they get killed or if they resign or something.
这是一件被低估的事情，能够将权力委托给有能力的人，然后如果他们被杀或者辞职什么的，就可以一个又一个地取代他们。
There’s not going to be some crazy succession crisis that creates this anarchy that then somebody else can swoop in and take control.
不会出现一些疯狂的继任危机，造成这种无政府状态，然后其他人就可以趁虚而入并取得控制权。
Si Sheppard Absolutely.
谢泼德绝对是。
Just to give one example, the British were winning the Hundred Years’ War because the King of France, Charles VI , was insane.
举个例子，英国之所以赢得百年战争，是因为法国国王查理六世疯了。
He was convinced he was made out of glass , for example.
例如，他确信自己是由玻璃制成的。
Then the English lost the Hundred Years’ War because their king, Henry VI , was insane, and he would just shut down for months at a time.
然后英国人输掉了百年战争，因为他们的国王亨利六世疯了，他会一次关闭几个月。
Mentally, he just couldn’t function.
从精神上来说，他根本无法发挥作用。
In non-democratic environments, yes, the corporations, for the reasons you outlined — profit-driven and therefore not loyal to bloodlines or any other kind of extraneous circumstances, but just looking for the most competent leadership and a capacity to change and replace people — are much more flexible than those kind of hierarchical states.
是的，在非民主环境中，企业，出于你所概述的原因——以利润为导向，因此不忠于血统或任何其他无关环境，而只是寻找最有能力的领导层以及改变和取代人的能力——比那些等级制国家灵活得多。
Even in many ways, you could argue, in democratic societies the corporations can still outmaneuver them because they’re untied to particular loyalties, and it’s just their brand awareness that they’re trying to push.
你可能会说，即使在很多方面，在民主社会中，企业仍然可以智取他们，因为他们不受特定忠诚度的束缚，而他们只是试图提升他们的品牌知名度。
The British and Dutch were late to the game of imperialism.
英国和荷兰在帝国主义游戏中起步较晚。
You wouldn’t give them much of a chance given the differentials, but they unleashed the power of the free market.
考虑到差异，你不会给他们太多机会，但他们释放了自由市场的力量。
As you say, the East India Company, the English and Dutch equivalents , the British Hudson’s Bay Company , which is really what made Canada as we understand it today…
正如你所说，东印度公司，英国和荷兰的同等公司，英国哈德逊湾公司，正是它造就了我们今天所理解的加拿大……
Those corporations, driven by those motives, acting with almost plenipotentiary powers at vast distances, had the flexibility on the ground to take advantage of local circumstances, to insert themselves into diplomatic arrangements which had persisted for centuries with all the accumulated grievances.
这些公司在这些动机的驱使下，几乎以全权代表的身份在遥远的距离采取行动，可以灵活地利用当地情况，将自己融入几个世纪以来积累的不满的外交安排中。
Here were the fresh newcomers: “We obviously have skills at what we do.”
以下是新来者：“我们显然在我们所做的事情上拥有技能。”
As you say, taking control of the tax revenue of Bengal effectively took control of the entire political orbit.
正如你所说，控制了孟加拉的税收实际上控制了整个政治轨道。
What can you do without taxation?
不缴税可以做什么？
Reorient that towards the shareholders, force the local people to stop producing these crops, even if it means millions starve to death, in order to produce opium to take advantage of that.
将其重新定位为股东，迫使当地人停止生产这些作物，即使这意味着数百万人饿死，以便生产鸦片以利用这一点。
It was devastating in its impact in political structures that had no real environment where that was part of their established traditions.
它对政治结构的影响是毁灭性的，因为政治结构没有真正的环境，而这也是其既定传统的一部分。
Even the conquistadors, even the Vikings, if we go back far enough, these were business operations.
即使是征服者，甚至是维京人，如果我们回溯得足够远，这些都是商业运作。
The Vikings would be men who would assemble with what weapons they had, enough capital upfront to pay for boats to go raiding, to make this profitable by looting churches and monasteries.
维京人会带着他们拥有的武器聚集起来，预先有足够的资金来支付船只进行袭击的费用，通过抢劫教堂和修道院来获利。
That’s what the conquistadors were.
征服者就是这样。
They were freebooters operating within a capitalist system.
他们是在资本主义制度下活动的强盗。
These were not desperados of the lowest of the low.
这些人并不是底层中最低层的亡命之徒。
Many of them had some education.
他们中的许多人受过一些教育。
A lot of them were hidalgos , which is the lowest rung of the petty nobility in Castile, who inherited titles and attitudes, but not much in assets beyond what they could put up as soldiers of fortune.
他们中的很多人都是伊达尔戈人，这是卡斯蒂利亚小贵族中最底层的人，他们继承了头衔和态度，但除了他们作为财富士兵所能提供的资产外，没有多少资产。
They called themselves compañeros , which is colleagues or companions, not soldados .
他们称自己为compañeros，即同事或同伴，而不是soldados。
This whole operation was, if you like, the most raw, unbridled capitalism at its finest, pooling assets to derive enormous profits from very risky ventures.
如果你愿意的话，这整个操作就是最原始、最不受约束的资本主义的精髓，汇集资产从风险极高的企业中获取巨额利润。
Dwarkesh Patel Maybe to close us off, the thing I find really remarkable in these stories…
德瓦克什·帕特尔（Dwarkesh Patel）也许是为了让我们隔绝，我发现这些故事中真正引人注目的事情......
We’ve talked about how lopsided these battles have been, how quickly this conquest proceeded.
我们已经讨论过这些战斗是多么不平衡，这场征服进行得有多快。
In the grand scheme of things, the technological advantages that the conquistadors had over these empires are not that shockingly big.
从长远来看，征服者相对于这些帝国的技术优势并没有那么大。
As you mentioned, guns at this time are not good enough to actually be that helpful during battle, so it’s basically horses and steel weapons.
正如你提到的，现在的枪还不够好，在战斗中实际上没有那么有用，所以基本上是马和钢铁武器。
In fact, I don’t know if we’ve talked about this, but towards the ends of these conquests, or the middles of these conquests, the metal is weighing them down and it’s really hot and stuff.
事实上，我不知道我们是否讨论过这一点，但是在这些征服的末尾，或者这些征服的中间，金属正在压垮他们，而且它真的很热之类的。
So they’re even reverting to the cotton armor that the natives are using.
所以他们甚至恢复了当地人使用的棉质盔甲。
So it’s not even the armor.
所以它甚至不是盔甲。
It’s really just that they had better metal swords instead of obsidian blades, and that they had horses.
其实只是他们有更好的金属剑而不是黑曜石刀片，而且他们有马。
That’s enough to let a couple hundred men take over entire empires.
这足以让几百人接管整个帝国。
You can draw analogies to what might happen in the future.
你可以对未来可能发生的事情进行类比。
We don’t even have to go there.
我们甚至不必去那里。
I just find it remarkable how little it took for them to be so dominant.
我只是觉得很了不起，他们花了很少的时间就取得了如此大的统治力。
Si Sheppard They could win battles.
谢泼德 他们可以赢得战斗。
They could not have won the war, though, at the end without the support of those indigenous allies.
然而，如果没有这些土著盟友的支持，他们最终不可能赢得战争。
So those are all the numbers.
这些就是所有数字。
Yes, you’re actually right.
是的，你确实是对的。
They would almost keep the helmets to protect the head, but many of them were ditching the metal armor in favor of the local stuff because that was good enough as protection against local weapons.
他们几乎会保留头盔来保护头部，但他们中的许多人放弃了金属盔甲，转而选择当地的东西，因为这足以防御当地的武器。
They would not have done that and carried it back to Europe.
他们不会这样做并将其带回欧洲。
That would have made them too vulnerable.
那会让他们太脆弱了。
But here you adapt to the circumstances.
但在这里你要适应环境。
You have more freedom of mobility.
您有更多的行动自由。
It’s less exhausting wearing cotton than it is to wear metal.
穿棉质衣服比穿金属衣服更省力。
They would make that adaptation.
他们会做出这样的调整。
They would even sometimes, for very prized allies, again as a way of integrating them into the Spanish coalition, provide local chiefs and warlords with Spanish weapons, just to emphasize, “You’re so special to me.” This was effective in binding them together.
有时，他们甚至会为非常珍贵的盟友，再次作为将他们融入西班牙联盟的一种方式，向当地酋长和军阀提供西班牙武器，只是为了强调，“你对我来说是如此特别。”这有效地将他们结合在一起。
They were very, very clever in identifying the local sub-chiefs beneath the Aztec layer of authority who would be receptive to the idea of, “Why are you taking orders from them when you get a better deal from us?”
他们非常非常聪明地找到了阿兹特克权力层之下的当地副酋长，他们会接受这样的想法：“当你从我们这里得到更好的交易时，为什么还要听从他们的命令？”
They knew, for example, the Aztec Empire was called the Triple Alliance because it was set up in 1428 by the first huey tlatoani as a coalition between the three city-states: Tenochtitlan, Texcoco , and Tacuba.
例如，他们知道阿兹特克帝国被称为三国联盟，因为它是由第一代休伊·特拉托尼于 1428 年建立的，是三个城邦（特诺奇蒂特兰、特斯科科和塔库巴）之间的联盟。
In 1516, so three years before Cortés arrived in Mesoamerica, the chief, or king, of Texcoco died, and his two sons fought a civil war for who would succeed him.
1516 年，即科尔特斯抵达中美洲的三年前，特斯科科的酋长或国王去世，他的两个儿子为谁继承他而爆发了内战。
Moctezuma stepped in and gave the title to one of those brothers.
蒙特祖玛介入并将头衔授予其中一位兄弟。
So what does the other brother do when the Spanish show up?
那么当西班牙人出现时，另一个兄弟会做什么呢？
He immediately sides with them.
他立即站在他们一边。
His own family was on both sides of this war.
他自己的家人是这场战争的双方。
This is his path to getting what he feels is his due, being the king of Texcoco.
这是他获得他认为应得的东西的道路：成为特斯科科之王。
In the broader sense, “If I’m under the Spanish versus under the Aztecs, maybe these newcomers will give me a better deal.” There was that seductive quality at the elite level.
从更广泛的意义上来说，“如果我在西班牙人统治下与在阿兹特克人统治下相比，也许这些新来者会给我更好的待遇。”精英阶层有一种诱人的品质。
Now, what they didn’t understand — so many of them thinking they were using the Spanish to their advantage — they didn’t appreciate the numbers in which the Spanish and later Europeans would arrive.
现在，他们不明白的是——他们中的许多人认为他们利用了西班牙人的优势——他们没有意识到西班牙人和后来的欧洲人到达的数量。
Their closed worlds didn’t allow them to think that people from such vast distances could come in such huge numbers.
他们封闭的世界不允许他们想到来自如此遥远的距离的人们会如此庞大。
In the end, as happened in, for example, Australia and New Zealand, “We’ll become the minority in our own country.” The demographic tide they didn’t appreciate in the long term would work fundamentally against them.
最终，正如澳大利亚和新西兰所发生的那样，“我们将成为自己国家的少数群体。”从长远来看，他们不重视的人口趋势将从根本上对他们不利。
Dwarkesh Patel The analogy to AI there is so obvious it’s not worth spelling out.
Dwarkesh Patel 与人工智能的类比是如此明显，以至于不值得详细说明。
But that’s actually an excellent place to close.
但这实际上是一个关闭的好地方。
This is such a bizarre and shocking and interesting part of human history, and I appreciate you coming on and telling us all about it.
这是人类历史上一个如此奇怪、令人震惊和有趣的部分，我很感谢你能告诉我们这一切。